After enduring a turbulent few years, point-of-care advertising and marketing company Outcome Health is getting a makeover, thanks to a merger.
PatientPoint is merging with Outcome to create PatientPoint Health Technologies point-of-care network, and in the process it's retiring the Outcome name. The combined company will be led by PatientPoint executives and CEO Mike Collette. Outcome Health CEO Matt McNally and chief operating officer Nandini Ramani are leaving the company.
The denouement of the Outcome Health brand is not entirely surprising, as it brings to an end a saga that included allegations of self-dealing, audits, an investor lawsuit and more.
The new PatientPoint will serve 150,000 unique healthcare providers with 750 million patient visits each year. Employees from both companies will remain at PatientPoint as it leverages "the best talent and technology from both," according to a press release. Crain's Chicago Business reported that the two companies started talking about a deal in October.
PatientPoint declined to provide further specifics. The new company is still “working through many details,” a spokesperson said in an email.
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Outcome Health emerged in early 2017, when it changed its name from ContextMedia, raised $500 million in venture capital funding and nabbed a $5.5 billion valuation. In June of that year, co-founder Shradha Agarwal appeared on stage at Cannes Lions Health in the south of France to talk about the meaning of outcomes and the shift toward tracking real-world performance.
But just a few months later, a Wall Street Journal report revealed whistleblower allegations that the company misled advertisers such as Pfizer, Johnson & Johnson and AbbVie. The allegations included overcharging for ad placements and manipulating analysis to improve performance reports. Thus began the unspooling of Outcome.
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After the media report, a group of investors sued Outcome for fraud, and the two sides went at it in the courts. Outcome began its own internal audit in conjunction with an independent audit by a third-party provider. Still, pharma advertisers decamped from the platform, and large ad agencies advised clients to suspend contracts until the audits were complete, the WSJ reported.
McNally and Ramani took over at Outcome after its co-founders were forced to step down as part of a $159 million settlement with investors in 2018. Despite the fact that they're on their way out of the new PatientPoint Health Technologies, CEO Collette commended them in the merger announcement “for leading Outcome Health’s incredible turnaround and rebuilding client trust.”