Earnings Labs

HeartBeam, Inc. (BEAT)

Q4 2012 Earnings Call· Wed, Feb 13, 2013

$0.88

-0.07%

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Good afternoon. Thank you for joining us for the CardioNet Fourth Quarter and Full Year 2012 Earnings Conference Call. Certain statements during the conference call and question-and-answer period to follow may relate to future events and expectations, and as such constitute forward-looking statements within the meaning of the Private Securities and Litigation Act of 1995. Such statements involve known and unknown risks, uncertainties and other factors which may cause the actual results, performance or achievements of the company in the future to be materially different from the statements that the company executives may make today. These risks are described in detail in our public filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including our latest periodic report on Form 10-K or 10-Q. We assume no duty to update these statements. [Operator Instructions] And it is now my pleasure to turn the floor over to your host, Mr. Joseph Capper. Sir, you may begin.

Joseph H. Capper

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon, everyone. I'm Joe Capper, President and CEO of CardioNet. Today, I will provide commentary on the fourth quarter with specific attention to the progress made against the strategic plans we have been pursuing in order to improve the performance of our company. As always, I am joined by Heather Getz, our CFO, who will provide detail on our operating results. We will also allow time for a brief question-and-answer session. The fourth quarter was a very successful one for CardioNet in many respects. Most important, we completed a transformational change in our business model that will benefit the trajectory of the company for years to come. I highlight this point, as many of the seminal changes that have been made will not be apparent in this quarter's financial performance, but we expect them to yield results in the coming quarters. One significant change we undertook and finalized in the fourth quarter was a strategic shift in our go-to-market strategy for our patient services business. In Q1 2013, we launched a new strategy that better leverages our competitive advantages as the leader in cardiac patient monitoring services, and we are encouraged by the early results. To support our new comprehensive strategy, we launched wEvent, a best-in-class wireless event monitor that will further strengthen our technology leadership in the market. We also continued to streamline our operating structure and reduce overall expenses. Finally, we have solidified our position as a key competitor in the $1 billion-plus research services cardiac monitoring market. CardioNet is a vastly different company as we start 2013, thanks to the steps we undertook over the past year. We begin this year with the most diversified revenue stream in the company's history and now have multiple growth drivers that we have added or augmented…

Heather C. Getz

Analyst

Thank you, Joe, and good afternoon, everyone. As Joe mentioned, revenue in the fourth quarter was $30 million, a 12% increase over the fourth quarter of 2011. We posted revenue gains in our product segment due to higher volume, which was largely timing-related, and in our research services segment, due to the impact of the Cardiocore acquisition. In our patient services segment, patient volume increased 17% while revenue declined due to our changing service mix. Compared to the third quarter, revenue increased due to the full quarter impact of Cardiocore as well as increased revenue from our products segment. Much of our quarter-over-quarter and sequential growth was driven by our acquisitions, which supports our strategy to diversify revenue so that we are less dependent on third-party reimbursement and less concentrated under a single CPT Code. Our progress toward this initiative is evidenced by the fact that in the fourth quarter of 2012, the MCOT CPT Code represented about 60% of revenue. This compares to almost 80% in the fourth quarter of 2011. Turning to gross margin. As a percent of revenue, our margin declined 480 basis points compared to the prior year. Growth in research services and products, which carry a lower gross profit margin than patient services, impacted margin by about 300 basis points. Lower ASP and service mix, partially offset by the impact of our expense reduction measures, accounted for the remaining difference. For the fourth quarter, our adjusted operating expense increased $1.8 million to $19.3 million due to the addition of Cardiocore. Excluding Cardiocore, our adjusted operating expense was lower, reflecting operational improvement and the cost reductions implemented at the end of 2011. On a sequential basis, excluding the full quarter impact of Cardiocore, our expenses declined due to lower bad debt expense and additional cost reductions…

Joseph H. Capper

Analyst

Thank you, Heather. I want to take a few minutes to expand in more detail on some of the comments I made in my opening remarks, and then I will open the call for questions. With regard to the changes we made in our cardiac monitoring business, I want to walk you through the rationale that led us to employ a more comprehensive approach than you have seen from CardioNet in the past. We possess the industry's largest direct sales force and a suite of industry-leading monitoring products. Previously, we directed many of our resources toward the promotion of MCOT, given the outstanding clinical and economic benefit it provides patients, doctors and payers. However, much of the testing that is done today still utilizes event and Holter monitors for a variety of reasons. We firmly believe that MCOT is the gold standard for monitoring and we will continue to make that case. However, we will now more actively pursue the prescriptions written for event and Holter monitors as well. We are confident that we can increase our share of those prescriptions while still communicating the superiority and cost effectiveness of MCOT. We do expect the market to migrate over time to MCOT, but in the interim, we will seek to capture a larger share of the entire market. To help us effectively take share in event monitoring, we introduced our wireless event during the fourth quarter. We believe our wEvent is the most advanced wireless event product in the market. Thus far, the product is receiving widespread market support and has proven to be an excellent complement to MCOT, especially in those areas where insurance coverage is a challenge. For 2013, we have fully aligned the sales force and senior management compensation structure with this more comprehensive strategy. Where in…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] No other questions waiting at the moment.

Joseph H. Capper

Analyst

Operator, if there's no questions, we'll go ahead and wrap up today's call. I want to thank everyone for listening in today, and thank you for your continued support and interest in the company, and we look forward to speaking to you at the end of next quarter. Operator, that concludes today's call. Thank you, everybody.

Operator

Operator

Thank you for joining today's conference. If you joined the conference late today, you may listen to the conference on digital replay, which will be available from February 13 till February 27, 2013, on (888) 286-8010 or (617) 801-6888, with passcode 37095865.