The virtual care giant Teladoc released its earnings report this week, showing a net loss of $133.8 million for the second quarter of 2021.

Total net loss for the first half of 2021 was $333.5 million, compared to $55.3 million for the same time period last year.  

At the same time, the vendor said its $503 million second-quarter revenue earnings had more than doubled compared with 2020.   

This change led Teladoc to forecast its total yearly revenue to be in the range of $2 billion to $2.025 billion, with a predicted net loss between $3.35 and $3.60 per share.  

Its visit numbers were also up, at 3.5 million: 28% higher than the second quarter of 2020, during the first wave of the pandemic. The company expected 13.5 million and 14 million total visits this year.  

After the earnings report, Teladoc's shares fell more than 7% in the extended session Tuesday, as reported by MarketWatch.  

Still, execs voiced optimism, driven in part by the launch of myStrengthComplete and what the company described as a "significant new agreement" with the Health Care Service Corporation.  

"Teladoc Health delivered a strong second quarter, marked by exciting new client wins, product launches, and tremendous progress on our quest to be the category-defining provider of whole person virtual care," said CEO Jason Gorevic in a statement. 

"We have solid momentum heading into the second half as the market embraces the unified care experience that only Teladoc Health has the breadth and scale to achieve," he added.  

New Amwell acquisitions  

Teladoc competitor Amwell was also in the news this week for its $320 million acquisition of SilverCloud Health and Conversa Health.

SilverCloud Health delivers a range of digital cognitive behavioral health programs, which the company says are evidence-based and clinically validated.

According to SilverCloud, the programs are used by more than 300 organizations, including Kaiser-Permanente, Optum and Providence Health. Amwell will use the platform to enrich its own behavioral health offerings and develop new programs.  

Conversa Health, meanwhile, uses automated patient interactions to ensure patients stay on track before and after live or virtual visits. It is used, the company says, by organizations including Northwell Health, UCSF Health, UNC Health, University Hospitals and Prisma Health. Amwell says it will use Conversa's technology to advance initiatives aimed at longitudinal care, clinical quality and population health.   

The acquisitions will also enable Amwell to create new digital workflows and programs and expand its client base to include those of Conversa and SilverCloud – especially in the U.K.  

"We believe that future care delivery will inevitably blend in-person, virtual and digital care experiences; and as such, we are uniquely building a global platform to support such advanced, coordinated care," said Ido Schoenberg, chairman and co-CEO at Amwell. 

"By integrating SilverCloud Health and Conversa Health into our platform, we are demonstrating Amwell’s fundamental and repeatable design to continually scale digital healthcare services across the different sites of care," he added.

"These acquisitions will amplify the presence and reach of care teams and reaffirm that as the needs of the healthcare marketplace evolve so too will the Amwell platform."

Kat Jercich is senior editor of Healthcare IT News.
Twitter: @kjercich
Email: kjercich@himss.org
Healthcare IT News is a HIMSS Media publication.