Skip to main content
Subscribe
  • Login
  • My Account
  • Logout
  • Register For Free
  • Subscribe
  • News
    • Current News
    • Providers
    • Insurance
    • Government
    • Finance
    • Technology
    • Safety & Quality
    • Digital Health
    • Transformation
    • ESG
    • People
    • Regional News
    • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Patients
    • Operations
    • Care Delivery
    • Payment
    • Midwest
    • Northeast
    • South
    • West
  • Blogs
    • AI
    • Deals
    • Layoff Tracker
    • HLTH 2024
    • Sponsored Content: Vital Signs Blog
  • Opinion
    • Letters
    • From the Editor
  • Events & Awards
    • Awards
    • Conferences
    • Galas
    • Virtual Briefings
    • Webinars
    • Nominate/Eligibility
    • 100 Most Influential People
    • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
    • 40 Under 40
    • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
    • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
    • Innovators Awards
    • Diversity Leaders
    • Leading Women
    • Best in Business Awards
    • The 2030 Playbook Conference
    • Innovations in Patient Experience
    • Leading Women Conference & Awards Luncheon
    • Leadership Summit
    • Workforce Summit
    • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
    • Diversity Leaders Gala
    • - Looking Ahead to 2025
    • - Financial Growth
    • - Hospital of the Future
    • - Value Based Care
    • - Looking Ahead to 2026
  • Multimedia
    • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
    • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
    • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
    • Sponsored Video Series - Checking In with Dan Peres
  • Data & Insights
    • Data & Insights Home
    • Hospital Financials
    • Staffing & Compensation
    • Quality & Safety
    • Mergers & Acquisitions
    • Skilled Nursing Facilities
    • Data Archive
    • Resource Guide: By the Numbers
    • Surveys
    • Data Points
  • Newsletters
  • MORE+
    • Contact Us
    • Advertise
    • Media Kit
    • Jobs
    • People on the Move
    • Reprints & Licensing
    • Sponsored Content
MENU
Breadcrumb
  1. Home
  2. Information Technology
January 06, 2013 11:00 PM

Athenahealth agrees to buy Epocrates for $293 million

Joseph Conn and Melanie Evans
  • Tweet
  • Share
  • Share
  • Email
  • More
    Reprints Print
    Related content

    Listen to a podcast from December 2012 with Epocrates co-founder Jeff Tangney.

    UPDATE: 3 p.m. ET

    Athenahealth, a Watertown, Mass.-based health information technology company, announced its second acquisition agreement since September with a $293 million cash deal for Epocrates, a mobile application developer.

    The deal would amount to $11.75 per share for San Mateo, Calif.-based Epocrates, which was named No. 1 last year in Modern Healthcare's first Most Important Mobile Healthcare Apps competition. The company was named to the top spot by the magazine's readers with help from the Association of Medical Directors of Information Systems and the College of Healthcare Information Management Executives.

    Epocrates is "the most trusted brand" in the clinical mobile applications space, Jonathan Bush, Athenahealth's president, chairman and CEO, said in a telephone interview. "They have a great clinical content team and wonderful mobile app developers," but the company's applications are now largely one-way communications channels, which can be combined and enhanced by access to Athenahealth's clinical applications and information, he said.

    "What we'd like to do is push it to the next level," he said. "Not only can you read information, but (you can) execute on it."

    Bush said he plans to expand Epocrates' boundaries to include search tools for diagnostics and procedures. "That creates demand for a whole new set of sponsors," he said. On the diagnostic side, those potential sponsors might include large reference labs, such as LabCorp or Quest Diagnostics. Also, Bush said, "You can go local. So, we'll connect into all of the local labs."

    Athenahealth is expected to finance the deal with cash and an existing credit facility, the company said in a news release. The acquisition is subject to the approval of Epocrates' shareholders and customary closing conditions and is expected to close early in the second quarter of this year, according to the release.

    Last fall, Athenahealth said it would acquire Healthcare Data Services, Boston, for undisclosed terms. The deal for HDS, a data analysis and population health management company, closed in October.

    Athenahealth, which was co-founded by federal Chief Technology Officer Todd Park, ranked a respectable No. 8 among 356 vendors of complete, ambulatory-care electronic medical-record systems that had at least one client that had attested to having met Medicare's meaningful-use criteria, according to a Modern Healthcare analysis of federal data.

    As of late December, 2,773 users of Athenahealth's Web-based ambulatory complete EHR had attested as Medicare meaningful users, giving the company roughly 2.6% of the ambulatory EHR meaningful-user market. It was well behind market leader Epic Systems, with 21.9% of the market, and No. 2 Allscripts, with 11.9%. Epic and Allscripts also offer EHR systems for hospitals.

    Through November, 170,543 physicians and other "eligible professionals" had been paid under either the Medicare or Medicaid EHR incentive programs—just a third or so of the 531,600 providers that, according to the government, qualify for incentive payments. This would suggest that the ambulatory EHR market, Athenahealth's niche, is fairly open. But with the push toward accountable care organizations, patient-centered medical homes and outcomes-based reimbursement as well as the growing combination of physician groups with hospitals, the market for physician-only EHRs already may be circumscribed, according to some industry observers.

    Even with nearly 48% of U.S. hospitals having already met Medicare meaningful-use requirements with their current inpatient EHR systems, it's not too late for Athenahealth to make headway in the hospital IT market, according to Bush, an evangelist for cloud-based, software-as-a-service delivery models over site-based legacy IT systems.

    Bush said his company is in about 50 hospitals and in another 40 imaging and ambulatory surgery centers with Web-based offerings for patient pre-certification and registration. It plans to offer additional software services to hospitals "slice by slice," he said.

    "All hospital systems are obsolete and will be shut down," Bush said. "If they don't die, they will be made illegal" by the government because they won't be able to achieve the level of interoperability needed for healthcare exchange and the new payment systems, he said. Those companies with traditional software could reconfigure their systems, but "you have negative grown margins for years and years before you start to make money," he said.

    Christine LaFave Grace contributed to this story.

    Letter
    to the
    Editor

    Send us a letter

    Have an opinion about this story? Click here to submit a Letter to the Editor, and we may publish it in print.

    Recommended for You
    Racial disparity hospital
    Providers confront racial bias engrained in EHRs
    Judy_Faulkner_Epic_HIMSS17_edit_i.jpg
    Epic outlines what's ahead for patient portal, Cosmos
    Most Popular
    1
    UnitedHealth under criminal investigation for Medicare fraud: WSJ
    2
    States, providers face brunt of GOP Medicaid cuts plan
    3
    UnitedHealth Group to cut Medicare drug plan commissions
    4
    Federal dementia pilot has rocky rollout for some providers
    5
    'Legendary' Hemsley takes over at UnitedHealth amid rough seas
    Sponsored Content
    Digital Health Intelligence Newsletter: Sign up to receive a twice-weekly (T, F) morning newsletter featuring the latest reporting on technologies, trends, players and money fueling the rapid changes in how healthcare is developed, paid for and delivered.
    Get Newsletters

    Sign up for enewsletters and alerts to receive breaking news and in-depth coverage of healthcare events and trends, as they happen, right to your inbox.

    Subscribe Today
    MH Magazine Cover

    MH magazine offers content that sheds light on healthcare leaders’ complex choices and touch points—from strategy, governance, leadership development and finance to operations, clinical care, and marketing.

    Subscribe
    Connect with Us
    • LinkedIn
    • Twitter
    • Facebook
    • RSS

    Our Mission

    Modern Healthcare empowers industry leaders to succeed by providing unbiased reporting of the news, insights, analysis and data.

    Contact Us

    (877) 812-1581

    Email us

     

    Resources
    • Contact Us
    • Help Center
    • Advertise with Us
    • Ad Choices
    • Sitemap
    Editorial Dept
    • Submission Guidelines
    • Code of Ethics
    • Awards
    • About Us
    Legal
    • Terms and Conditions
    • Privacy Policy
    • Privacy Request
    Modern Healthcare
    Copyright © 1996-2025. Crain Communications, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
    • News
      • Current News
      • Providers
      • Insurance
      • Government
      • Finance
      • Technology
      • Safety & Quality
      • Digital Health
      • Transformation
        • Patients
        • Operations
        • Care Delivery
        • Payment
      • ESG
      • People
      • Regional News
        • Midwest
        • Northeast
        • South
        • West
      • Digital Edition (Web Version)
    • Blogs
      • AI
      • Deals
      • Layoff Tracker
      • HLTH 2024
      • Sponsored Content: Vital Signs Blog
    • Opinion
      • Letters
      • From the Editor
    • Events & Awards
      • Awards
        • Nominate/Eligibility
        • 100 Most Influential People
        • 50 Most Influential Clinical Executives
        • 40 Under 40
        • Best Places to Work in Healthcare
        • Healthcare Marketing Impact Awards
        • Innovators Awards
        • Diversity Leaders
        • Leading Women
        • Best in Business Awards
      • Conferences
        • The 2030 Playbook Conference
        • Innovations in Patient Experience
        • Leading Women Conference & Awards Luncheon
        • Leadership Summit
        • Workforce Summit
      • Galas
        • Best Places to Work Awards Gala
        • Diversity Leaders Gala
      • Virtual Briefings
        • - Looking Ahead to 2025
        • - Financial Growth
        • - Hospital of the Future
        • - Value Based Care
        • - Looking Ahead to 2026
      • Webinars
    • Multimedia
      • Podcast - Beyond the Byline
      • Sponsored Podcast - Healthcare Insider
      • Sponsored Video Series - One on One
      • Sponsored Video Series - Checking In with Dan Peres
    • Data & Insights
      • Data & Insights Home
      • Hospital Financials
      • Staffing & Compensation
      • Quality & Safety
      • Mergers & Acquisitions
      • Skilled Nursing Facilities
      • Data Archive
      • Resource Guide: By the Numbers
      • Surveys
      • Data Points
    • Newsletters
    • MORE+
      • Contact Us
      • Advertise
      • Media Kit
      • Jobs
      • People on the Move
      • Reprints & Licensing
      • Sponsored Content