Grand Rounds, a healthcare company that connects patients with local and remote specialty care, and Doctor On Demand, a virtual care provider, have announced they are merging.
The new integrated virtual care company will include a full suite of digital and interactive solutions to help people address the $300 billion problem of uncoordinated care in the U.S., said officials, who believe the combined company is “the first of its kind.”
“No one has done this before, combining navigation and virtual care delivery. We think it’s the future,” said Owen Tripp, co-founder and CEO of Grand Rounds. “People make unguided healthcare decisions every day, often with higher costs and worse outcomes. Now, with Doctor On Demand, we’ll offer them coordinated support on all fronts—physical, behavioral, financial, administrative—and we’ll do it for everything from acute issues to life-long health. This is truly complete care, and it’s what we all need.”
The San Francisco-based Grand Rounds, which also operates in Nevada, brands itself as a user’s “personal healthcare assistant.” It offers two primary services related to: one connects users' local physicians with remote specialists for a collaborative team approach to tough cases; the second identifies the top local experts for both surgical and non-surgical specialties based on quantitative analysis. According to its Wikipedia page, “Unlike ER-avoidance companies like Teladoc, the company does not remotely prescribe medications or perform treatments. Instead, the company focuses on specialty expertise in the high-acuity cases that drive the largest change, and on connecting patients to the right local experts.” Grand Rounds also has a service that helps individuals understand their health benefits, giving them personalized support.
Last August, Teladoc, one of Doctor On Demand’s main competitors, announced the acquisition of digital health firm Livongo, in an $18.5 billion deal focused on digital healthcare delivery. Like many telehealth companies, usage of Doctor On Demand’s virtual care platform has significantly grown since the onset of the pandemic. The company raised $75 million in series D financing last July.
Hill Ferguson, CEO of Doctor On Demand, added, “We’re building a next-generation virtual care company with a nationwide practice of diverse, dedicated providers and a multidisciplinary care team. By fully integrating medical and behavioral healthcare with clinical navigation, we’re impacting healthcare where it actually happens—between a patient and their provider—and ensuring that experience is seamless, personalized, and can follow the patient wherever they go.”
According to a CNBC report, which included interviews of both company CEOs, a potential deal was discussed in the early days of the pandemic, but they “quickly got too bogged down by patient demands to make anything happen.” Then, late in 2020, conversations picked back up and gained steam.
According to CNBC, Grand Rounds was last valued at $1.34 billion in a financing round in mid-2020, while Doctor On Demand was valued at about $820 million around the same time, the report noted, referencing SharesPost.
The transaction is subject to regulatory approval and customary closing conditions and is expected to close in the first half of 2021. Terms of the transaction were not disclosed.
