A new ticker symbol is now trading on the Nasdaq: C-H-N-G. That’s for Change Healthcare. The Nashville, Tennessee health tech company sold its shares to the public at the IPO price of $13 a share raising nearly $800 million and celebrated its market debut by ringing the closing bell at the Nasdaq Market Site.
This is the latest in a wave of healthcare IPOs this year. There have been more than 42 healthcare listings in 2019 and they have dominated the new companies coming to market.
With annual revenues of $3 billion, Change Healthcare is an established company, not a start up. And CEO Neil de Crescenzo says the time was right for his company to go public.
“This is the time because we’ve really created a foundation as one of the largest healthcare IT companies in the country serving payers, providers, and consumers,” he says. “We built the foundation and now we have new investors who share our vision.”
De Crescenzo’s vision is to equip healthcare industry players with the latest tech tools, including artificial intelligence, blockchain, and data analytics, so they can operate more efficiently and in the process improve clinical decision-making, simplify billing and payment processes, and create a better patient experience.
His goal is for Change Healthcare to live up to its name by bringing change and innovation to the U.S. Healthcare system. He is so dedicated to that mission that he does not feel threatened by competition from powerful non-healthcare companies like Amazon, Microsoft and Google. In fact, he welcomes it and even partners with them because he says, “it helps them and us to disrupt healthcare.”
De Crescenzo also supports President Trump’s push to make health care pricing more transparent for consumers.
“It must happen because consumers are demanding it,” he explains. “With the growth of high deductible health plans and how much of their healthcare costs they are responsible for, they’re really eager to become better shoppers of healthcare.”
Watch the video above for more from my interview with de Crescenzo.