Telehealth services provider Teladoc Inc. won’t deliver full financial results for a few weeks, but preliminary figures show a spike in revenue, primarily due to a big acquisition, and a loss in the fourth quarter.

Teladoc’s preliminary report shows 2017 revenue of $232 million, up 88% from $123.2 million in 2016. Teladoc didn’t break out revenue by source, but some of the growth is from its June $444 million acquisition of Best Doctors Inc., a digital healthcare company that provides patients and doctors with access to medical experts in the U.S. and overseas to obtain a better diagnosis and treatment plan.

For the fourth quarter, Teladoc reported revenue of $76 million, an increase of 103% from $37.4 million in the prior year. Teladoc didn’t break out net income for the year or the fourth quarter but did say that earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization would show a loss of $12 million to $13 million for the year and $2.3 million for the fourth quarter. EBITA, a way to evaluate a company’s performance without having to factor in financing decisions, accounting decisions or tax environments, was $39.7 million and $8 million, respectively, for 2016 and the fourth quarter of 2016.

Teladoc also provided several other year-end metrics and guidance for 2018 including:

• 2018 total revenue of $350 million to $360 million.
• Adjusted 2018 EBITA of $7 million to $10 million
• Total 2018 membership of 22 million to 24 million users compared with 23 million in 2017
• Total 2017 visits of about 1.46 million compared with a forecast of 1.9 million to 2 million visits in 2018

“We head into 2018 extremely well positioned to deliver on our targets for all key operating and financial metrics,” says Teladoc CEO Jason Gorevic.

Teladoc acquired Best Doctors to build a global digital healthcare services delivery platform that’s primarily mobile. The Best Doctors global network consists of more than 50,000 medical experts in more than 450 medical specialties. Best Doctors’ services range from having a doctor review a patient’s diagnosis and treatment plan in detail and provide expert answers and advisory services to answering basic questions about a medical condition or treatment plan.

Best Doctors also provides a critical care program that provides support for patients experiencing multi-trauma, spinal cord injuries, traumatic brain injuries, severe burns and sepsis and for patients with increasing ventilator requirements, such as acute respiratory distress syndrome and acute lung injury.

Now that the two companies are integrated Teladoc is rolling out a newly updated Best Doctors Apple and Google app that lets users schedule and conduct video doctor visits and a variety of other tasks. Users can request and schedule an expert medical review of their diagnosis and treatment plan for complex and chronic conditions, receive upcoming messages for doctor visits and view a history of visits completed from general medicine, dermatology and behavioral health consultations.

“Consumers are increasingly using mobile devices to take control of their healthcare journey, with nearly 74% of Teladoc visits being requested through mobile,” Teladoc says.

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