Amwell (NYSE: AMWL), a telehealth company, has seen subscription revenue skyrocket after adding behavioral health provider SilverCloud and health automation tool Conversa Health to its platform.
Executives at the Boston-based company, formally known as American Well, said the success of virtual mental health provider SilverCloud indicates a high demand for behavioral health services. It also presents a significant opportunity to integrate mental health into health plans and comprehensive health services for healthcare providers.
Amwell has acquired SilverCloud. $226.2 million, paid $118.6 $1 million was paid to Conversa under the deal, which will be completed in August 2021. SilverCloud, Conversa, and other services are part of the Converge platform, an amalgamation of services and technology architecture that serves as the backbone of Amwell’s services.
“That’s the Amwell way in many ways,” CEO Ido Schoenberg told SilverCloud. transcript The company uses technology to “leverage the providers we know and trust, integrate into our usual primary care pathways, and allow them to be dramatically effective.”
Schoenberg also said Amwell has a clear vision of how behavioral health services and further automation will play out for the company.
Founded in 2012, SilverCloud takes a different approach to mental health care compared to many newcomers to virtual mental health. Rather than offering only self-guided content or telemedicine therapist visits, we try to split the difference.
The company’s therapists spend approximately 10 minutes with patients for check-in to clarify, motivate and assist them in their progress through a cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) module. The company boasts similar results to his traditional CBT model.
“Therapist spends the same amount of time [meet] On screen or in person,” said SilverCloud co-founder and clinical director Dr. John Sharry in a previous interview. “SilverCloud proposes another modality.”
During the call, Schoenberg cited SilverCloud’s approach as being able to provide more care and deliver it in a more cost-effective manner.
“We do this not by hiring a large number of psychiatrists and psychologists, but by automating many tasks so that existing therapists can use their time more effectively. We did,” said SilverCloud.
Amwell’s network has approximately 1,400 active behavioral health providers. Latest Annual Financial Report.
Amwell projects a $3.9 billion opportunity in the total addressable market (TAM) for telepsychiatry alone. The US behavioral health TAM is $29 billion, and he sees a $52 billion global behavioral health market opportunity. Schoenberg has previously addressed the unmet needs that Amwell seeks to address.
“This market opportunity has been opened wider with the acquisition of SilverCloud,” the annual report said.
In addition to providing services, Amwell clients can integrate their own technology into Converge. This allows clients to bring digital tools into their telemedicine visits to facilitate service adoption. Amwell’s annual financial report mentions introducing text-based cognitive-behavioral therapy during virtual visits.
The report also says health plans typically use other Amwell products while working with employer clients, then add virtual primary care, behavioral health services, or other state-specific services.
Starting as a research concept in Ireland, SilverCloud also serves as an international expansion vehicle. It currently has contracts with the UK’s National Health Service and similar programs in Australia and other European countries.
“We are seeing very strong demand for behavioral health enablement and efficiency, and with Converge being introduced this year, we are confident that it will be a highly demanded module,” Schoenberg said. ‘ said.
Amwell’s revenue will grow by nearly 10% to $277.2 million in 2022. Subscription revenue increased 12% and revenue per visit increased 7%. However, adjusted losses widened 43% to $175.3 million, according to its annual earnings report.
Schoenberg’s comments underscore the company’s interest in deepening its offering of behavioral health products to its corporate clients. However, he did not mention the company’s ambitions for this division.
He also didn’t mention rumors that Amwell was in talks to acquire virtual behavioral health provider Talkspace Inc. (Nasdaq: TALK) in June 2022 and November 2022. Talkspace itself has recently focused on moving to a B2B approach. Talkspace’s CEO, Dr. Jon Cohen, said on a recent earnings call that the company is at an inflection point and is focused on improving operations and building a more sophisticated enterprise product.
