UNITED STATES SECURITIES AND EXCHANGE COMMISSION

Washington, D.C. 20549

Form 10-K

 

 

Commission File Number 001-33689

athenahealth, Inc.

(Exact name of registrant as specified in its charter)

 

 

617-402-1000

Registrant’s telephone number, including area code

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(b) of the Act:

 

 

Securities registered pursuant to Section 12(g) of the Act:

None

 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is a well-known seasoned issuer, as defined in Rule 405 of the Securities Act.  Yes o     No þ

 

Indicate by check mark if the registrant is not required to file reports pursuant to Section 13 or Section 15(d) of the Act.  Yes o     No þ

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant (1) has filed all reports required to be filed by Section 13 or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 during the preceding 12 months (or for such shorter period that the registrant was required to file such reports), and (2) has been subject to such filing requirements for the past 90 days.  Yes þ     No o

 

Indicate by check mark if disclosure of delinquent filers pursuant to Item 405 of Regulation S-K (§ 229.405 of this chapter) is not contained herein, and will not be contained, to the best of registrant’s knowledge, in definitive proxy or information statements incorporated by reference in Part III of this Form 10-K or any amendment to this Form 10-K.  o

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a large accelerated filer, an accelerated filer, a non-accelerated filer, or a smaller reporting company. See the definitions of “large accelerated filer,” “accelerated filer” and “smaller reporting company” in Rule 12b-2 of the Exchange Act. (Check one):

 

(Do not check if a smaller reporting company)

 

Indicate by check mark whether the registrant is a shell company (as defined in Rule 12b-2 of the Act).  Yes o     No þ

 

The aggregate market value of the voting and non-voting common equity held by non-affiliates computed by reference to the price at which the common equity was last sold, or the average bid and asked price of such common equity, as of the last business day of the registrant’s most recently completed second fiscal quarter was $711,889,292.

 

Indicate the number of shares outstanding of each of the registrant’s classes of common stock, as of the latest practicable date. At February 27, 2009, the registrant had 33,419,269 shares of Common Stock, par value $0.01 per share, outstanding.

 

DOCUMENTS INCORPORATED BY REFERENCE

 

Part III of this Form 10-K incorporates information by reference from the registrant’s definitive proxy statement to be filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission within 120 days after the close of the fiscal year covered by this annual report.

 

 

INDEX

 

 

 

SPECIAL NOTE REGARDING
FORWARD-LOOKING STATEMENTS AND INDUSTRY DATA

 

This Annual Report on Form 10-K contains forward-looking statements. All statements other than statements of historical fact contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are forward-looking statements, including those regarding our expectations for future financial or operational performance, product and service offerings, regulatory environment, and market trends. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” or “continue”; the negative of these terms; or other comparable terminology.

 

Forward-looking statements are only current predictions and are subject to known and unknown risks, uncertainties, and other factors that may cause our or our industry’s actual results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements to be materially different from those anticipated by such statements. These factors include, among other things, those listed under “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements. Except as required by law, we are under no duty to update or revise any of such forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, after the date of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

Unless otherwise indicated, information contained in this Annual Report on Form 10-K concerning our industry and the markets in which we operate, including our general expectations and market position, market opportunity, and market share, is based on information from independent industry analysts and third-party sources (including industry publications, surveys, and forecasts), our internal research, and management estimates. Management estimates are derived from publicly available information released by independent industry analysts and third-party sources, as well as data from our internal research, and are based on assumptions made by us based on such data and our knowledge of such industry and markets, which we believe to be reasonable. None of the sources cited in this Annual Report on Form 10-K has consented to the inclusion of any data from its reports, nor have we sought their consent. Our internal research has not been verified by any independent source, and we have not independently verified any third-party information. While we believe the market position, market opportunity, and market share information included in this Annual Report on Form 10-K is generally reliable, such information is inherently imprecise. In addition, projections, assumptions, and estimates of our future performance and the future performance of the industries in which we operate are necessarily subject to a high degree of uncertainty and risk due to a variety of factors, including those described in “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K. These and other factors could cause results to differ materially from those expressed in the estimates made by the independent parties and by us.

 

 

In this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the terms “athena,” “athenahealth,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to athenahealth, Inc. and its subsidiary, athenahealth Technology Private Limited, and any subsidiary that may be acquired or formed in the future.

 

athenahealth, athenaNet, and the athenahealth logo are registered service marks of athenahealth, and athenaClinicals, athenaCollector, athenaCommunicator, athenaEnterprise, athenaRules, and ReminderCall are service marks of athenahealth. This Annual Report on Form 10-K also includes the registered and unregistered trademarks of other persons.

 

Overview

 

athenahealth is a leading provider of Internet-based business services for physician practices. Our service offerings are based on four integrated components: our proprietary Internet-based software, our continually

updated database of payer reimbursement process rules, our back-office service operations that perform administrative aspects of billing and clinical data management for physician practices, and our automated and live patient communication services. Our principal offering, athenaCollector, automates and manages billing-related functions for physician practices and includes a medical practice management platform. We have also developed a service offering, athenaClinicals, that automates and manages medical record-related functions for physician practices and includes an electronic medical record, or EMR, platform. ReminderCall, the newest offering from athenahealth, is our automated appointment reminder system that allows patients to either confirm the appointment or request rescheduling; we plan on combining ReminderCall with test results, prescription refill, collection, and other patient communication offerings in our athenaCommunicator services suite that we expect to beta launch in 2009. We refer to athenaCollector as our revenue cycle management service, athenaClinicals as our clinical cycle management service, and athenaCommunicator as our patient cycle management service. Our services are designed to help our clients achieve faster reimbursement from payers, reduce error rates, increase collections, lower operating costs, improve operational workflow controls, improve patient satisfaction and compliance, and more efficiently manage clinical and billing information.

 

In the last five years, we have primarily focused on developing our proprietary Internet-based software application and integrated service operations to expand our client base. In 2005, we formed a subsidiary in India to complement our U.S.-based software development activities and to work closely with our business partners in India. In September 2008, we completed our first acquisition, purchasing the assets of Crest Line Technologies, LLC (d.b.a. MedicalMessaging.Net), a privately held company that developed ReminderCall and associated services. In 2008, we generated revenue of $139.6 million from the sale of our services, compared to $100.8 million in 2007. As of December 31, 2008, there were more than 18,750 medical providers, including more than 12,550 physicians, using our services across 39 states and 60 medical specialties.

 

Market Opportunity

 

We believe the market opportunity for our services is, in large part, currently driven by physician office collections in the United States. According to the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, since 2000, ambulatory care spending increased by an average of 7.4% per year to $479 billion in 2007. As the ambulatory care market has grown, we estimate that the market for revenue and clinical cycle management solutions has grown to over $27 billion. These expenditures are primarily comprised of salary and benefits for in-house administrative staff and the cost of third-party practice management and EMR software.

 

Growth in managed care has increased the complexity of physician practice reimbursement. Managed care plans typically create reimbursement structures with greater complexity than previous methods, placing greater responsibility on the physician practice to capture and provide appropriate data to obtain payments. Also, despite substantial consolidation in the number of managed care organizations over the last decade, many of the legacy information technology platforms used to manage the plans operated by these companies have remained in place. As a result of this increasing complexity, physician practices must keep track of multiple plan designs and processing requirements to ensure appropriate payment for services rendered.

 

Physician office-based billing activities that are required to ensure appropriate payment for services rendered have increased in number and complexity for the following reasons:

 

 

 

In addition to administering typical small business functions, smaller physician practices must invest significant time and resources in activities that are required to secure reimbursement from third-party payers or patients and process inbound and outbound communications related to physician orders to laboratories and pharmacies. In order to process these communications, physician offices often manipulate locally or remotely installed software, execute paper-based and fax-based communications to and from payers, and conduct telephone-based discussions with payers and intermediaries to resolve unpaid claims or to inquire about the status of transactions.

 

The Established Model

 

Currently, the majority of physician practices bill for their services in one of three ways: purchasing, installing, and operating locally installed practice management software, paying for use of remotely installed “on-demand” practice management software, or hiring a third-party billing service to collect billing-related information and input the information into a software system maintained by the service. In many instances, the solutions that are installed at the physician office or a remote location are operated by administrative personnel on staff at the office. As the complexity and number of health benefit plan payer rules has increased, the ability of locally or remotely installed software solutions to keep up with new and revised payer rules has lagged behind this trend, leading to higher levels of unpaid claims, prolonged billing cycles, and increased clinical inefficiencies. While locally or remotely installed software has been shown to provide improvement in physician practice efficiency and collections relative to paper-based systems, we believe that such standalone software is not suited for today’s dynamic and increasingly complex healthcare system.

 

Despite advances in practice management software to address the administrative needs of the physician office, the billing, collections, and medical record management functions remain expensive, inefficient, and challenging for many physician practice groups. We believe that established locally or remotely installed physician practice management software has generally suffered from the following challenges:

 

 

 

We believe that traditional outsourced back-office service providers do not compensate significantly for these deficiencies of the locally or remotely installed software model. These service providers generally rely on third-party software that suffers from the same deficiencies that physicians experience when they perform their own back-office processing operations. The software often is not connected to payer rules that can be enforced in real time by office staff throughout the patient workflow. In addition, these service providers typically operate discrete databases and sometimes utilize separate processes for each client they serve, which affords limited advantages of scale, thereby conferring limited cost advantages to physician practices. Without either control over the software application or an integrated rules database, outsourced service providers cannot offer physicians the benefits of our Internet-based business service model.

 

The payer universe is dynamic and continuously growing in complexity as rules are changed and new rules are added, making it extremely difficult for physician practices, and even payers, to effectively manage the reimbursement rules landscape. While locally or remotely installed software has struggled to meet these challenges, the Internet has developed in the broader economy into a reliable and efficient medium that opens the door to entirely new ways of performing business functions. The Internet is ideally suited to centralization of the large-scale research needed to stay current with payer rules and to the instantaneous dissemination of this information. The Internet also allows real-time consolidation and centralized execution of administrative work across many medical practice locations. As a result, the health care industry is well suited to benefit from the efficiency and effectiveness of the Internet as a delivery platform.

 

Our Solution

 

The dynamic and increasingly complex healthcare market requires an integrated solution to manage the reimbursement and clinical landscape effectively. We believe that we are the first company to integrate web-based software, a continually updated database of payer rules, and back-office service operations into a single Internet-based business service for physician practices. We seek to deliver these services at each critical step in the revenue and clinical cycle workflow through a combination of software, knowledge, and work:

 

 

We are economically aligned with our physician practice clients because payment for our services in most cases is dependent on the results our services achieve for our clients. The positive results of our approach are seen in the significant growth in the number of clients serviced, collections under management, and overall revenue in each of the preceding eight years.

 

Key advantages of our solution include:

 

 

Our Strategy

 

Our mission is to be the most trusted business service to medical groups. Key elements of our strategy include:

 

 

Our Services

 

athenahealth is a leading provider of Internet-based business services for physician practices. Our service offerings are based on our proprietary web-based software, a continually updated database of payer rules, integrated back-office service operations, and our automated and live patient communication services. Our services are designed to help our clients achieve faster reimbursement from payers, reduce error rates, increase collections, lower operating costs, improve operational workflow controls, and more efficiently manage clinical and billing information.

 

 

athenaCollector

 

Our principal offering, athenaCollector, is our revenue cycle management service that automates and manages billing-related functions for physician practices and includes a practice management platform. athenaCollector assists our physician clients with the proper handling of claims and billing processes to help submit claims quickly and efficiently.

 

Software (athenaNet)

 

Through athenaNet, athenaCollector utilizes the Internet to connect physician practices to our rules engine and service operations team. In its 2008 year-end “Best in KLAS” survey, KLAS Enterprises, LLC, a healthcare information technology industry research firm, reported athenaNet No. 6 in the Ambulatory and Billing Scheduling category for practices with a single physician, No. 1 in the Ambulatory and Billing Scheduling category for practice groups with two to five physicians, No. 2 in the Ambulatory and Billing Scheduling category for practice groups with six to 25 physicians, and No. 1 in the Ambulatory and Billing Scheduling category for practice groups with 25 to 100 physicians. Apart from the single-physician practice category, which was first instituted in 2008, athenaNet has been ranked in the top 5 in each of these categories

in each annual Best in KLAS ranking since 2004. athenaNet includes a workflow dashboard used by our clients and our services team to track in real-time claims requiring edits before they are sent to the payer, claims requiring work that have come back from the payer unpaid, and claims that are being held up due to administrative steps required by the individual client. This Internet-native functionality provides our clients with the benefits of our database of payer rules as it is updated and enables them to interact with our services team to efficiently monitor workflows. The Internet-based architecture of athenaNet allows each transaction to be available to our centralized rules engine so that mistakes can be corrected quickly across all of our clients.

 

Knowledge (athenaRules)

 

Physician practices route all of their day-to-day electronic and paper payer communications to us, which we then process using athenaRules and our significant understanding of payer rules to avoid reimbursement delays and improve practice revenue. Our proprietary database of payer knowledge has been constructed based on over eight years of experience in dealing with physician workflow in hundreds of physician practices with medical claims from tens of thousands of health benefit plans. The core focus of the database is on the payer rules, which are the key drivers of claim payment and denials. Understanding denials allows us to construct rules to avoid future denials across our entire client base, resulting in increased automation of our workflow processes. On average, over 100 rules are added or revised in our rules engine each month. athenaRules has been designed to interact seamlessly with athenaNet in the medical office workflow and in our service operations.

 

Work (athenahealth Service Operations)

 

athenahealth Service Operations enables the service teams that collaborate with client staff to achieve successful transactions. Our Service Operations consists of both knowledgeable staff and technological infrastructure used to execute the key steps associated with proper handling of physician claims and clinical data management. It is comprised of approximately 508 people on our service teams in the United States who interact with physicians, providers, and clinicians at all of the key steps in the revenue cycle, including:

 

 

athenaClinicals

 

athenaClinicals is our clinical cycle management service that automates and manages medical record management-related functions for physician practices and includes an EMR platform. It assists medical groups with the proper handling of physician orders and related inbound and outbound communications to ensure that orders are carried out quickly and accurately and to provide an up-to-date and accurate online patient clinical record. athenaClinicals is designed to improve clinical administrative workflow, and its software component has received certification from the Certification Commission for Healthcare Information Technology, or CCHIT, under that body’s 2006 standards.

 

Software (athenaNet)

 

Through athenaNet, athenaClinicals displays key clinical measures by office location related to the drivers of high quality and efficient care delivery on a workflow dashboard, including lab results requiring review, patient referral requests, prescription requests, and family history of previous exams. Similar to its functionality within athenaCollector, athenaNet provides comprehensive reporting on a range of clinical results, including distribution of different procedure codes (leveling), incidence of different diagnoses, timeliness of turnaround by lab companies and other intermediaries, and other key performance indicators.

 

Knowledge (athenaRules)

 

Clinical data must be captured according to the requirements and incentives of different payers and plans. Clinical intermediaries such as laboratories and pharmacy networks require specific formats and data elements as well. athenaRules is designed to access medication formularies, identify potential medication errors such as drug-to-drug interactions or allergy reactions, and identify the specific clinical activities that are required to adhere to pay-for-performance programs, which can add incremental revenue to the physician practice.

 

Work (athenahealth Service Operations)

 

athenaClinicals provides the additional functionality that we believe medical groups expect from an EMR to help them complete the key processes that affect the clinical care record related to patient care, including:

 

 

athenaCommunicator

 

As a result of our acquisition of the assets of Crest Line Technologies, LLC (d.b.a. MedicalMessaging.Net) in September 2008, we now offer automated messaging services that remind patients of appointment details and allow them to use that automated system to confirm or reschedule the appointment or to speak with a live operator. These services help to reduce no-shows and thereby increase the number of revenue-generating appointments. We have renamed these services ReminderCall and expanded their marketing to our existing clients while also offering our other services to existing MedicalMessaging clients. We envision the development of an expanded set of services, tentatively called athenaCommunicator, which would include ReminderCall and other outbound and inbound patient messaging services relating to patient collections, patient lab result reporting, prescription refills, and other transactions. The specific packaging, pricing, and marketing plans for this new service line have not been completed. We expect to offer beta clients an initial version of these services in 2009, with broader marketing, sales, and product development efforts likely to occur in subsequent years.

Sales and Marketing

 

We have developed a sales and marketing capability aimed at expanding our network of physician clients and expect to expand these efforts in the future. We have a significant direct sales effort, which we augment through our indirect channel relationships.

 

Direct Sales

 

As of December 31, 2008, we employed a direct sales and sales support force of 96 employees. Of these employees, 74 were sales professionals. Because of our ongoing service relationship with clients, we conduct a consultative sales process. This process includes understanding the needs of prospective clients, developing service proposals, and negotiating contracts to enable the commencement of services. Of this sales force, 59 members are dedicated to physician practices with four or more physicians and 15 members are dedicated to physician practices with one to three physicians. As of December 31, 2008, our sales team includes 35 quota-carrying sales representatives, of whom 20 are assigned to the groups with four or more physicians and 15 are assigned to the smaller practices. Our sales force is supported by 22 personnel in our sales and marketing organizations who provide specialized support for promotional and selling efforts.

 

Channel Partners

 

In addition to our employed sales force, we maintain business relationships with individuals and organizations that promote or support our sales or services within specific industries or geographic regions, which we refer to as channels. We refer to these individuals and organizations as our channel partners. In most cases, these relationships are generally agreements that compensate channel partners for providing us sales lead information that results in sales. These channel partners generally do not make sales but instead provide us with leads that we use to develop new business through our direct sales force. Other channel relationships permit third parties to act as value-added resellers or as independent sales representatives. In some instances, the channel relationship involves endorsement or promotion of our services by these third parties. In 2008, channel-based leads were associated with approximately half of our new business. Our channel relationships include state medical societies, healthcare information technology product companies, healthcare product distribution companies, and consulting firms. Examples of these types of channel relationships include:

 

 

In May 2007, we entered into a marketing and sales agreement with PSS for the marketing and sale of athenaClinicals and athenaCollector. The agreement has an initial term of three years and may be terminated by either party for cause or convenience. Under the terms of the agreement, we will pay PSS sales commissions based upon the estimated contract value of orders placed with PSS, which will be adjusted 15 months after the date the service begins for each client, in order to reflect actual revenue received by us from clients. Subsequent commissions will be based upon a specified percentage of actual revenue generated from orders placed with PSS. We funded $0.3 million toward the establishment of an incentive plan for the PSS sales representatives during the first twelve months of the agreement and are responsible for co-sponsoring training sessions and conducting on-line education for PSS sales representatives.

 

Under the terms of the agreement, no later than June 2009, revenue cycle services or software from athenahealth will be the exclusive revenue cycle solution sold by PSS, and from and after the date that clinical cycle services and software from athenahealth has been CCHIT certified and is generally commercially released as a stand-alone service, such services and software will be the exclusive clinical cycle solution marketed and sold by PSS. Additionally, the terms of the agreement prohibit us from entering into a similar agreement with any business that has, as its primary source of revenue, revenue from the business of distributing medical and surgical supplies to the physician ambulatory care market in the United States. None of our existing channel relationships are affected by our exclusive arrangement with PSS, and while our agreement with PSS precludes us from entering into similar arrangements with other distributors of medical

and surgical supplies to the physician ambulatory care market in the United States, we believe that PSS is of sufficient size so as to offer us a compelling opportunity to market our services to prospective clients that would otherwise be difficult for us to reach. According to PSS, they have the largest medical and surgical supplies sales force in the United States, consisting of more than 750 sales consultants who distribute medical supplies and equipment to more than 100,000 offices in all 50 states.

 

Marketing Initiatives

 

Since our service model is new to most physicians, our marketing and sales objectives are designed to increase awareness of our company, establish the benefits of our service model, and build credibility with prospective clients, so that they will view our company as a trustworthy long-term service provider. To execute on this strategy, we have designed and implemented specific activities and programs aimed at converting leads to new clients.

 

In June 2006, we introduced our annual PayerView rankings in order to provide an industry-unique framework to systematically address what we believe is administrative complexity existing between payers and providers. PayerView is designed to look at payers’ performance based on a number of categories, which combine to provide an overall ranking aimed at quantifying the “ease of doing business with the payer.” All data used for the rankings come from actual claims performance data of our clients and depict our experience in dealing with individual payers across the nation. The rankings include national payers that meet a minimum yearly threshold of 120,000 charge lines of data and regional payers that meet a minimum yearly threshold of 20,000 charge lines.

 

Our marketing initiatives are generally targeted towards specific segments of the physician practice market. These marketing programs primarily consist of:

 

 

Technology, Development, and Operations

 

As backup to the production data housed on the systems at our Watertown, Massachusetts, and Belfast, Maine, offices, we currently operate a data center in Bedford, Massachusetts with Sentinel Properties — Bedford, LLC. Our data centers are maintained and supported by third parties at their dedicated locations. In addition, in 2007 we signed a disaster recovery contract with a major provider of these services, Sungard Availability Services, LP, so that, in the event of a total disaster at our primary data centers, we could become operational in an acceptable timeframe at a back-up location. The services provided by our data center and disaster recovery service providers are generally commercially available at comparable rates from other service providers.

 

Our mission-critical business application is hosted by us and accessed by clients using high-speed Internet connections or private network connections. We have devoted significant resources to producing software and related application and data center services that meet the functionality and performance expectations of clients. We use commercially available hardware and a combination of proprietary and commercially available software to provide our services. Software licenses for the commercially sourced software are generally available on commercially reasonable terms. The design of our application and database servers is modular and scalable in that, as new clients are added, we are able to add additional capacity as necessary. We refer to

this as a “horizontal scaling architecture,” which means that hardware to support new clients is added alongside existing clients’ hardware and does not directly affect those clients.

 

We devote significant resources to innovation. We execute six to eight releases of new software functionality to our clients each year. Our application development methodology ensures that each software release is properly designed, built, tested, and rolled out. Our clients all operate on the same version of our software, although some rules are designed to take effect only locally for particular clients. Our software development activities involve approximately 60 technologists employed by us in the United States as of December 31, 2008. We complement this team’s work with software development services from a third-party technology development provider in Pune, India, and with our own direct employees at our development center operated through our wholly owned subsidiary located in Chennai, India. As of December 31, 2008, we employed 41 people in our direct subsidiary, and in 2008 this entity represented approximately 1% of our total operating expense. In addition to our core software development activities, we dedicate full-time staff to our ongoing development and maintenance of the athenaRules database. On average, over 100 rules are added or revised in our rules engine each month. We also employ process innovation specialists and product management personnel, who work continually on improvements to our service operations processes and our service design, respectively.

 

Once our clients are live on our service, we collaborate with them to generate business results. We employed approximately 508 people in our service operations dedicated to providing these services to our clients as of December 31, 2008. These employees assist our clients at each critical step in the revenue cycle and clinical cycle workflow process and provide services that include insurance benefits packaging, insurance eligibility confirmation, claims submission, claims tracking, remittance posting, denials management, payment processing, formatting of lab requisitions, submission of lab requisitions, and monitoring and classification of all inbound faxes. Additionally, we use third parties for data entry, data matching, data characterization, and outbound telephone services. Currently, we have contracted for these services with Vision Business Process Solutions Inc., a subsidiary of Perot Systems Corporation, to provide data entry and other services from facilities located in India and the Philippines to support our client service operations. These services are generally commercially available at comparable rates from other service providers.

 

During 2008, athenahealth:

 

 

We depend on satisfied clients to succeed. Our client contracts require minimum commitments by us on a range of tasks, including claims submission, payment posting, claims tracking, and claims denial management. We also commit to our clients that athenaNet is accessible 99.7% of the time, excluding scheduled maintenance windows. Each quarter, our management conducts a survey of clients to identify client concerns and track progress against client satisfaction objectives. In our most recent survey, 84% of the respondents reported that they would recommend our services to a trusted friend or colleague.

 

In addition to the services described above, we also provide client support services. There are several client service support activities that take place on a regular basis, including the following:

 

 

 

The increased burden on patients to pay for a larger percentage of their healthcare services, together with the need for providers to have the ability to determine this patient payment responsibility at the time of service, has led some payers to develop the capability to accept and process claims in real time. Under such a real-time adjudication, or RTA, system, payers notify physicians immediately upon receipt of billing information if third-party claims are accepted or rejected, the amount that will be paid by the payer, and the amount that the patient may owe under the particular health plan involved. This capability is frequently referred to within the industry as “real time adjudication” because it avoids the processing time that adjudication of claims by payers has historically involved. Taking advantage of this payer capability, we have designed a platform for transacting with payer RTA systems that is payer-neutral and designed to integrate the various payer RTA processes so that our clients experience the same workflow regardless of payer. Using this platform, we have collaborated with two major payers, Humana and United Healthcare, to process RTA transactions with their systems.

 

Competition

 

We have experienced, and expect to continue to experience, intense competition from a number of companies. Our primary competition is the use of locally installed software to manage revenue and clinical cycle workflow within the physician’s office. Other nationwide competitors have begun introducing services that they refer to as “on-demand” or “software-as-a-service” models, under which software is centrally hosted and services are provided from central locations. Software and service companies that sell practice management and EMR software and medical billing and collection services include GE Healthcare, Sage Software Healthcare, Inc., Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc., Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., and Quality Systems, Inc. As a service company that provides revenue cycle services, we also compete against large billing companies such as McKesson Corp.; Medical Management Professionals, a division of CBIZ, Inc.; Ingenix, a division of United Healthcare, Inc.; and regional billing companies.

 

The principal competitive factors in our industry include:

 

 

We believe that we compete favorably with our competitors on the basis of these factors. However, many of our competitors and potential competitors have significantly greater financial, technological, and other resources and name recognition than we do, as well as more established distribution networks and relationships with healthcare providers. As a result, many of these companies may respond more quickly to new or emerging technologies and standards and changes in customer requirements. These companies may be able to invest more resources than we can in research and development, strategic acquisitions, sales and marketing, and patent prosecution and litigation and to finance capital equipment acquisitions for their customers.

Government Regulation

 

Although we generally do not contract with U.S. state or local government entities, the services that we provide are subject to a complex array of federal and state laws and regulations, including regulation by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS, of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, as well as additional regulation.

 

Government Regulation of Health Information

 

HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules.  The Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act of 1996, as amended, and the regulations that have been issued under it (collectively, “HIPAA”) contain substantial restrictions and requirements with respect to the use and disclosure of individuals’ protected health information. These are embodied in the Privacy Rule and Security Rule portions of HIPAA. The HIPAA Privacy Rule prohibits a covered entity from using or disclosing an individual’s protected health information unless the use or disclosure is authorized by the individual or is specifically required or permitted under the Privacy Rule. The Privacy Rule imposes a complex system of requirements on covered entities for complying with this basic standard. Under the HIPAA Security Rule, covered entities must establish administrative, physical, and technical safeguards to protect the confidentiality, integrity, and availability of electronic protected health information maintained or transmitted by them or by others on their behalf.

 

The HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules apply directly to covered entities, such as healthcare providers who engage in HIPAA-defined standard electronic transactions, health plans, and healthcare clearinghouses. Because we translate electronic transactions to and from the HIPAA-prescribed electronic forms and other forms, we are considered a clearinghouse, and as such are a covered entity. In addition, our clients are also covered entities. In order to provide clients with services that involve the use or disclosure of protected health information, the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules require us to enter into business associate agreements with our clients. Such agreements must, among other things, provide adequate written assurances:

 

 

HIPAA Transaction Requirements.  In addition to the Privacy and Security Rules, HIPAA also requires that certain electronic transactions related to health care billing be conducted using prescribed electronic formats. For example, claims for reimbursement that are transmitted electronically to payers must comply with specific formatting standards, and these standards apply whether the payer is a government or a private entity. As a covered entity subject to HIPAA, we must meet these requirements, and moreover, we must structure and provide our services in a way that supports our clients’ HIPAA compliance obligations.

 

State Laws.  In addition to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules, most states have enacted patient confidentiality laws that protect against the disclosure of confidential medical information, and many states have adopted or are considering further legislation in this area, including privacy safeguards, security standards, and data security breach notification requirements. Such state laws, if more stringent than HIPAA requirements, are not preempted by the federal requirements, and we must comply with them.

 

Red Flag Rules.  Starting May 1, 2009, medical practices that act as “creditors” to their patients will need to comply with new Federal Trade Commission rules promulgated under the Fair and Accurate Credit Transactions Act of 2003 that are aimed at reducing the risk of identity theft. These rules require creditors to adopt policies and procedures that identify patterns, practices, or activities that indicate possible identity theft (called “red flags”); detect those red flags; and respond appropriately to those red flags to prevent or mitigate

any theft. The rules also require creditors to update their policies and procedures on a regular basis. Because most practices treat their patients without receiving full payment at the time of service, our clients are generally considered “creditors” for purposes of these rules and are required to comply with them. Although we are not directly subject to these rules — since we do not extend credit to customers — we do handle patient data that, if improperly disclosed, could be used in identity theft. We therefore plan on assisting in our clients’ efforts to the extent necessary to implement appropriate procedures.

 

Government Regulation of Reimbursement

 

Our clients are subject to regulation by a number of governmental agencies, including those that administer the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Accordingly, our clients are sensitive to legislative and regulatory changes in, and limitations on, the government healthcare programs and changes in reimbursement policies, processes, and payment rates. During recent years, there have been numerous federal legislative and administrative actions that have affected government programs, including adjustments that have reduced or increased payments to physicians and other healthcare providers and adjustments that have affected the complexity of our work. For example, Medicare reimbursement was, for a period of time in 2006, reduced with respect to portions of the physician payment fee schedule. The federal government subsequently rescinded reduction and decided to pay physicians the amount of the reduction that had been applied to claims already processed under the reduced payment fee schedule. To collect these payments for our clients, we re-submitted claims that had previously been processed. This process required substantial unanticipated processing work by us, and the additional payments for re-submitted claims were sometimes very small. It is possible that the federal or state governments will implement future reductions, increases, or changes in reimbursement under government programs that adversely affect our client base or our cost of providing our services. Any such changes could adversely affect our own financial condition by reducing the reimbursement rates of our clients or by increasing our cost of serving clients.

 

Fraud and Abuse

 

A number of federal and state laws, loosely referred to as “fraud and abuse laws,” are used to prosecute healthcare providers, physicians, and others that make, offer, seek, or receive referrals or payments for products or services that may be paid for through any federal or state healthcare program and, in some instances, any private program. Given the breadth of these laws and regulations, they are potentially applicable to our business; the transactions that we undertake on behalf of our clients; and the financial arrangements through which we market, sell, and distribute our services. These laws and regulations include:

 

Anti-Kickback Laws.  There are numerous federal and state laws that govern patient referrals, physician financial relationships, and inducements to healthcare providers and patients. The federal healthcare programs’ anti-kickback law prohibits any person or entity from offering, paying, soliciting, or receiving anything of value, directly or indirectly, for the referral of patients covered by Medicare, Medicaid, and other federal healthcare programs or the leasing, purchasing, ordering, or arranging for or recommending the lease, purchase, or order of any item, good, facility, or service covered by these programs. Courts have construed this anti-kickback law to mean that a financial arrangement may violate this law if any one of the purposes of one of the arrangements is to encourage patient referrals or other federal healthcare program business, regardless of whether there are other legitimate purposes for the arrangement. There are several limited exclusions known as safe harbors that may protect some arrangements from enforcement penalties. These safe harbors have very limited application. Penalties for federal anti-kickback violations are severe, and include imprisonment, criminal fines, civil money penalties with triple damages, and exclusion from participation in federal healthcare programs. Many states have similar anti-kickback laws, some of which are not limited to items or services for which payment is made by a government healthcare program.

 

False or Fraudulent Claim Laws.  There are numerous federal and state laws that forbid submission of false information or the failure to disclose information in connection with the submission and payment of physician claims for reimbursement. In some cases, these laws also forbid abuse of existing systems for such submission and payment, for example, by systematic over treatment or duplicate billing for the same services to collect increased or duplicate payments. These laws and regulations may change rapidly, and it is frequently

unclear how they apply to our business. For example, one federal false claim law forbids knowing submission to government programs of false claims for reimbursement for medical items or services. Under this law, knowledge may consist of willful ignorance or reckless disregard of falsity. How these concepts apply to services such as ours that rely substantially on automated processes has not been well defined in the regulations or relevant case law. As a result, our errors with respect to the formatting, preparation, or transmission of such claims and any mishandling by us of claims information that is supplied by our clients or other third parties may be determined to, or may be alleged to, involve willful ignorance or reckless disregard of any falsity that is later determined to exist.

 

In most cases where we are permitted to do so, we charge our clients a percentage of the collections that they receive as a result of our services. To the extent that liability under fraud and abuse laws and regulations requires intent, it may be alleged that this percentage calculation provides us or our employees with incentive to commit or overlook fraud or abuse in connection with submission and payment of reimbursement claims. The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has stated that it is concerned that percentage-based billing services may encourage billing companies to commit or to overlook fraudulent or abusive practices.

 

Stark Law and Similar State Laws.  The Ethics in Patient Referrals Act, known as the Stark Law, prohibits certain types of referral arrangements between physicians and healthcare entities. Physicians are prohibited from referring patients for certain designated health services reimbursed under federally funded programs to entities with which they or their immediate family members have a financial relationship or an ownership interest, unless such referrals fall within a specific exception. Violations of the statute can result in civil monetary penalties and/or exclusion from the Medicare and Medicaid programs. Furthermore, reimbursement claims for care rendered under forbidden referrals may be deemed false or fraudulent, resulting in liability under other fraud and abuse laws.

 

Laws in many states similarly forbid billing based on referrals between individuals and/or entities that have various financial, ownership, or other business relationships. These laws vary widely from state to state.

 

Corporate Practice of Medicine Laws, Fee-Splitting Laws, and Anti-Assignment Laws

 

In many states, there are laws that forbid non-licensed practitioners from practicing medicine, that prevent corporations from being licensed as practitioners, and that forbid licensed medical practitioners from practicing medicine in partnership with non-physicians, such as business corporations. In some states, these prohibitions take the form of laws or regulations forbidding the splitting of physician fees with non-physicians or others. In some cases, these laws have been interpreted to prevent business service providers from charging their physician clients on the basis of a percentage of collections or charges.

 

There are also federal and state laws that forbid or limit assignment of claims for reimbursement from government funded programs. Some of these laws limit the manner in which business service companies may handle payments for such claims and prevent such companies from charging their physician clients on the basis of a percentage of collections or charges. In particular, the Medicare program specifically requires that billing agents who receive Medicare payments on behalf of medical care providers must meet the following requirements:

 

 

Medicaid regulations similarly provide that payments may be received by billing agents in the name of their clients without violating anti-assignment requirements if payment to the agent is related to the cost of the

billing service, not related on a percentage basis to the amount billed or collected, and not dependent on collection of payment.

 

Electronic Prescribing Laws

 

States have differing prescription format and signature requirements. Many existing laws and regulations, when enacted, did not anticipate the methods of e-commerce now being developed. However, due in part to recent industry initiatives, federal law and the laws of all 50 states now permit the electronic transmission of prescription orders. In addition, on November 7, 2005, the Department of Health and Human Services published its final E-Prescribing and the Prescription Drug Program regulations, referred to below as the E-Prescribing Regulations. These regulations are required by the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act of 2003 (“MMA”) and became effective beginning on January 1, 2006. The E-Prescribing Regulations consist of detailed standards and requirements, in addition to the HIPAA standards discussed previously, for prescription and other information transmitted electronically in connection with a drug benefit covered by the MMA’s Prescription Drug Benefit. These standards cover not only transactions between prescribers and dispensers for prescriptions but also electronic eligibility and benefits inquiries and drug formulary and benefit coverage information. The standards apply to prescription drug plans participating in the MMA’s Prescription Drug Benefit. Aspects of our services are affected by such regulation, as our clients need to comply with these requirements.

 

Anti-Tampering Laws

 

For certain prescriptions that cannot or may not be transmitted electronically from physician to pharmacy, both federal and state laws require that the written forms used exhibit anti-tampering features. For example, the U.S. Troop Readiness, Veterans’ Care, Katrina Recovery, and Iraq Accountability Appropriations Act of 2007 requires that, as of April 1, 2008, most prescriptions covered by Medicaid must demonstrate security features that prevent copying, erasing, or counterfeiting of the written form. Because our clients will, on occasion, need to use printed forms, we must take these laws into consideration for purposes of the prescription functions of our athenaClinicals service.

 

Electronic Health Records Certification Requirements

 

The federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, or ONCHIT, is responsible for promoting the use of interoperable electronic health records, or EHRs, and systems. ONCHIT has introduced a strategic framework and has awarded contracts to advance a national health information network and interoperable EHRs. One project within this framework is a “voluntary” private sector based certification commission, CCHIT, that certifies electronic health record systems as meeting minimum functional and interoperability requirements. Our clinical application functionality is certified by CCHIT under its 2006 criteria. It is possible that such certification may become a requirement for selling clinical systems in the future, and CCHIT’s certification requirement may change substantially. While we believe our system is well designed in terms of function and interoperability, and we plan on meeting CCHIT’s 2008 criteria, we cannot be certain that it will meet future requirements.

 

United States Food and Drug Administration

 

The FDA has promulgated a draft policy for the regulation of computer software products as medical devices and a proposed rule for reclassification of medical device data systems under the Federal Food, Drug and Cosmetic Act, as amended, or FDCA. If our computer software functionality is a medical device under the policy or a medical device data system under the rule, we could be subject to the FDA requirements discussed below. Although it is not possible to anticipate the final form of the FDA’s policy or final rule with regard to computer software, we expect that the FDA is likely to become increasingly active in regulating computer software intended for use in healthcare settings regardless of whether the draft policy or proposed rule is finalized or changed.

Medical devices are subject to extensive regulation by the FDA under the FDCA. Under the FDCA, medical devices include any instrument, apparatus, machine, contrivance, or other similar or related article that is intended for use in the diagnosis of disease or other conditions or in the cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease. FDA regulations govern, among other things, product development, testing, manufacture, packaging, labeling, storage, clearance or approval, advertising and promotion, sales and distribution, and import and export. FDA requirements with respect to devices that are determined to pose lesser risk to the public include:

 

 

Non-compliance with applicable FDA requirements can result in, among other things, public warning letters, fines, injunctions, civil penalties, recall or seizure of products, total or partial suspension of production, failure of the FDA to grant marketing approvals, withdrawal of marketing approvals, a recommendation by the FDA to disallow us from entering into government contracts, and criminal prosecutions. The FDA also has the authority to request repair, replacement, or refund of the cost of any device.

 

Foreign Regulations

 

Our subsidiary in Chennai, India, is subject to additional regulations by the Government of India, as well as its regional subdivisions. These regulations include Indian federal and local corporation requirements, restrictions on exchange of funds, employment-related laws, and qualification for tax status and tax incentives.

 

Intellectual Property

 

We rely on a combination of patent, trademark, copyright, and trade secret laws in the United States as well as confidentiality procedures and contractual provisions to protect our proprietary technology, databases, and our brand. Despite these reliances, we believe the following factors are more essential to establishing and maintaining a competitive advantage:

 

 

We have filed seven patent applications related to the technology and workflow processes underlying our core service offerings, such as our athenaNet Rules Engine. Our first patent application describes and

documents our unique patient workflow process, including the athenaNet Rules Engine, which applies proprietary rules to practice and payer inputs on a live, ongoing basis to produce cleaner health care claims, which can be adjudicated more quickly and efficiently. The patent application relating to the athenaNet Rules Engine system was filed in August 2001. Although we received a final office action from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, or USPTO, rejecting the application, we have appealed that decision, which is currently on hold the patent remains subject to continued examination. Six subsequent patent applications that describe and document other unique aspects of our functionality and workflow processes were filed during calendar years 2006 through 2008 and are currently pending before the USPTO; we also acquired a patent application in connection with the MedicalMessaging.Net acquisition in September 2008. None of these applications have received any office actions from the USPTO.

 

We also rely on a combination of registered and unregistered service marks to protect our brands. athenahealth, athenaNet, and the athenahealth logo are registered service marks of athenahealth, and athenaClinicals, athenaCollector, athenaCommunicator, athenaEnterprise, athenaRules, and ReminderCall are service marks of athenahealth.

 

We have a policy of requiring key employees and consultants to execute confidentiality agreements upon the commencement of an employment or consulting relationship with us. Our employee agreements also require relevant employees to assign to us all rights to any inventions made or conceived during their employment with us. In addition, we have a policy of requiring individuals and entities with which we discuss potential business relationships to sign non-disclosure agreements. Our agreements with clients include confidentiality and non-disclosure provisions.

 

Employees

 

As of December 31, 2008, we had 824 employees. Of these employees, 783 were employed in the U.S., including 508 in service operations, 96 in sales and marketing, 86 in research and development, and 93 in general and administrative functions. In addition, as of that date, we had 41 employees located in Chennai, India, who were employed by our 100% directly owned subsidiary, athenahealth Technology Private Limited, including four in service operations, 29 in research and development, and eight in general and administrative functions. We believe that we have good relationships with our employees. None of our employees are subject to collective bargaining agreements or are represented by a union.

 

Organization and Trademarks

 

We were incorporated in Delaware on August 21, 1997, as Athena Healthcare Incorporated. We changed our name to athenahealth.com, Inc. on March 31, 2000, and to athenahealth, Inc. on November 17, 2000. Our corporate headquarters are located at 311 Arsenal Street, Watertown, Massachusetts, 02472, and our telephone number is (617) 402-1000. In this Annual Report on Form 10-K, the terms “athena,” “athenahealth,” “we,” “us,” and “our” refer to athenahealth, Inc. and its subsidiary, athenahealth Technology Private Limited, and any subsidiary that may be acquired or formed in the future.

 

athenahealth, athenaNet and the athenahealth logo are registered service marks of athenahealth and athenaClinicals, athenaCollector, athenaCommunicator, athenaEnterprise, athenaRules, and ReminderCall are unregistered service marks of athenahealth. This Annual Report on Form 10-K also includes the registered and unregistered trademarks of other persons.

 

Where You Can Find More Information

 

Our Annual Reports on Form 10-K, Quarterly Reports on Form 10-Q, Current Reports on Form 8-K, and amendments to those reports filed or furnished pursuant to Section 13(a) or 15(d) of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934 are available through the investor relations portion of our website (www.athenahealth.com) free of charge as soon as reasonably practicable after we electronically file such material with, or furnish it to, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or SEC. Information on our investor relations page and on our website is not part of this Annual Report on Form 10-K or any of our other securities filings unless specifically incorporated herein by reference. In addition, our filings with the Securities and Exchange Commission may

be accessed through the Securities and Exchange Commission’s Interactive Data Electronic Applications (IDEA) system at www.sec.gov. All statements made in any of our securities filings, including all forward-looking statements or information, are made as of the date of the document in which the statement is included, and we do not assume or undertake any obligation to update any of those statements or documents unless we are required to do so by law.

 

Financial Information

 

The financial information required under this Item 1 is incorporated herein by reference to Item 8 of this Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

Executive Officers of the Registrant

 

Our executive officers and key employees and their respective ages and positions as of January 1, 2009, are as follows:

 

 

Jonathan Bush is our Chief Executive Officer, President, and Chairman. Mr. Bush co-founded athenahealth in 1997. Prior to joining athenahealth, Mr. Bush served as an EMT for the City of New Orleans, was trained as a medic in the U.S. Army, and worked as a management consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton. Mr. Bush obtained a Bachelor of Arts in the College of Social Studies from Wesleyan University and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

 

Carl B. Byers is our Senior Vice President, Chief Financial Officer, and Treasurer. Mr. Byers joined athenahealth at its founding in 1997. Prior to joining athenahealth, Mr. Byers served as a management consultant with Booz Allen & Hamilton. Mr. Byers obtained a Bachelor of Arts in the College of Social Studies from Wesleyan University and was a Business Fellow at the University of Chicago’s Graduate School of Business.

 

Robert L. Cosinuke is our Senior Vice President and Chief Marketing Officer. Mr. Cosinuke joined athenahealth in December of 2007. Mr. Cosinuke was a co-founder of Digitas, LLC in 1991. Digitas is a leading interactive and database marketing advertising agency and was acquired by Publicis Group SA in February of 2007. From 1991 to 2006, Mr. Cosinuke was employed by Digitas, most recently as President of Digitas, Boston. He also served as President of Global Capabilities, Digitas. Mr. Cosinuke has a Bachelor of Arts degree from Haverford College and an M.B.A. from Harvard Business School.

 

Robert M. Hueber is our Senior Vice President of Sales. Mr. Hueber joined athenahealth in 2002. From 1984 to 2002, Mr. Hueber served IDX Systems Corporation as Vice President and National Director of Sales and most recently as Vice President of Sales for the Enterprise Solutions Division. Prior to joining IDX, Mr. Hueber served as Senior Marketing Representative at Raytheon Data Systems and as a Sales Executive for Exxon Enterprises. Mr. Hueber obtained a Bachelor of Science in Marketing from Northeastern University.

 

Nancy G. Brown is our Senior Vice President of Business Development and Government Affairs. Ms. Brown joined athenahealth in 2004. From 1999 to 2004, Ms. Brown served McKesson Corporation as Senior Vice President. Before McKesson, Ms. Brown was co-founder of Abaton.com, which was acquired by McKesson Corp. Prior to that, Ms. Brown worked for Harvard Community Health Plan in various senior

management roles over a five-year period. Ms. Brown obtained a Bachelor of Science from the University of New Hampshire and an M.B.A. from Northeastern University.

 

Leslie Locke is our Senior Vice President of People and Process. Ms. Locke has served in several capacities since joining athenahealth in 1998, including operational and product roles. Prior to joining athenahealth, Ms. Locke held various roles in integrated delivery systems operations at Lovelace Health Systems, a provider of health care services. Ms. Locke obtained a Bachelors of Arts from Colorado College and a Masters in Heath Administration from Washington University.

 

 

Our operating results and financial condition have varied in the past and may in the future vary significantly depending on a number of factors. Except for the historical information in this report, the matters contained in this report include forward-looking statements that involve risks and uncertainties. The following factors, among others, could cause actual results to differ materially from those contained in forward-looking statements made in this report and presented elsewhere by management from time to time. Such factors, among others, may have a material adverse effect upon our business, results of operations, and financial condition.

 

RISKS RELATED TO OUR BUSINESS

 

Our operating results have in the past and may continue to fluctuate significantly, and if we fail to meet the expectations of analysts or investors, our stock price and the value of your investment could decline substantially.

 

Our operating results are likely to fluctuate, and if we fail to meet or exceed the expectations of securities analysts or investors, the trading price of our common stock could decline. Moreover, our stock price may be based on expectations of our future performance that may be unrealistic or that may not be met. Some of the important factors that could cause our revenues and operating results to fluctuate from quarter to quarter include:

 

 

Many of these factors are not within our control, and the occurrence of one or more of them might cause our operating results to vary widely. As such, we believe that quarter-to-quarter comparisons of our revenues and operating results may not be meaningful and should not be relied upon as an indication of future performance.

A significant portion of our operating expense is relatively fixed in nature, and planned expenditures are based in part on expectations regarding future revenue. Accordingly, unexpected revenue shortfalls may decrease our gross margins and could cause significant changes in our operating results from quarter to quarter. In addition, our future quarterly operating results may fluctuate and may not meet the expectations of securities analysts or investors. If this occurs, the trading price of our common stock could fall substantially either suddenly or over time.

 

We have incurred significant operating losses in the past and may not remain profitable in the future.

 

Although our financial performance over the last six fiscal quarters has allowed us to conclude that our U.S. operations have achieved sustained profitability for tax purposes, we have incurred significant operating losses in the past. For example, for the year ended December 31, 2007, we had a net loss of $3.5 million and an income from operations of $4.5 million. We also have an accumulated deficit of $39.8 million as of December 31, 2008. You should not consider recent quarterly revenue growth or the reversal of our valuation allowance against deferred tax assets in the U.S. as a guarantee of our future performance, especially in light of current economic conditions. In addition, we expect our costs and operating expenses to increase in the future as we expand our operations. If our revenue does not grow to offset these expected increased costs and operating expenses, we may not remain profitable.

 

We operate in a highly competitive industry, and if we are not able to compete effectively, our business and operating results will be harmed.

 

The provision by third parties of revenue cycle services to physician practices has historically been dominated by small service providers who offer highly individualized services and a high degree of specialized knowledge applicable in many cases to a limited medical specialty, a limited set of payers, or a limited geographical area. We anticipate that the software, statistical, and database tools that are available to such service providers will continue to become more sophisticated and effective and that demand for our services could be adversely affected.

 

Revenue cycle software for physician practices has historically been dominated by large, well-financed and technologically sophisticated entities that have focused on software solutions. Some of these entities are now offering “on-demand” services or a “software-as-a-service” model under which software is centrally administered, and administrative services may be provided on a vendor basis. The size and financial strength of these entities is increasing as a result of continued consolidation in both the information technology and healthcare industries. We expect large integrated technology companies to become more active in our markets, both through acquisition and internal investment. As costs fall and technology improves, increased market saturation may change the competitive landscape in favor of competitors with greater scale than we possess.

 

Some of our current large competitors, such as GE Healthcare, Sage Software Healthcare, Inc., Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc., Quality Systems, Inc., Siemens Medical Solutions USA, Inc., and McKesson Corp. have greater name recognition, longer operating histories, and significantly greater resources than we do. As a result, our competitors may be able to respond more quickly and effectively than we can to new or changing opportunities, technologies, standards, or client requirements. In addition, current and potential competitors have established, and may in the future establish, cooperative relationships with vendors of complementary products, technologies, or services to increase the availability of their products to the marketplace. Accordingly, new competitors or alliances may emerge that have greater market share, larger client bases, more widely adopted proprietary technologies, greater marketing expertise, greater financial resources, and larger sales forces than we have, which could put us at a competitive disadvantage. Further, in light of these advantages, even if our services are more effective than the product or service offerings of our competitors, current or potential clients might accept competitive products and services in lieu of purchasing our services. Increased competition is likely to result in pricing pressures, which could negatively impact our sales, profitability, or market share. In addition to new niche vendors, who offer stand-alone products and services, we face competition from existing enterprise vendors, including those currently focused on software solutions, which have information systems in place with clients in our target market. These existing enterprise vendors may now, or in the future, offer or promise products or services with less functionality than our

services, but that offer ease of integration with existing systems and that leverage existing vendor relationships.

 

The market for our services is immature and volatile, and if it does not develop or if it develops more slowly than we expect, the growth of our business will be harmed.

 

The market for Internet-based business services is relatively new and unproven, and it is uncertain whether these services will achieve and sustain high levels of demand and market acceptance. Our success will depend to a substantial extent on the willingness of enterprises, large and small, to increase their use of on-demand business services in general, and for their revenue and clinical cycles in particular. Many enterprises have invested substantial personnel and financial resources to integrate established enterprise software into their businesses, and therefore may be reluctant or unwilling to switch to an on-demand application service. Furthermore, some enterprises may be reluctant or unwilling to use on-demand application services, because they have concerns regarding the risks associated with security capabilities, among other things, of the technology delivery model associated with these services. If enterprises do not perceive the benefits of our services, then the market for these services may not develop at all, or it may develop more slowly than we expect, either of which would significantly adversely affect our operating results. In addition, as a relatively new company in this unproven market, we have limited insight into trends that may develop and affect our business. We may make errors in predicting and reacting to relevant business trends, which could harm our business. If any of these risks occur, it could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, or results of operations.

 

If we do not continue to innovate and provide services that are useful to users, we may not remain competitive, and our revenues and operating results could suffer.

 

Our success depends on providing services that the medical community uses to improve business performance and quality of service to patients. Our competitors are constantly developing products and services that may become more efficient or appealing to our clients. As a result, we must continue to invest significant resources in research and development in order to enhance our existing services and introduce new high-quality services that clients will want. If we are unable to predict user preferences or industry changes, or if we are unable to modify our services on a timely basis, we may lose clients. Our operating results would also suffer if our innovations are not responsive to the needs of our clients, are not appropriately timed with market opportunity, or are not effectively brought to market. As technology continues to develop, our competitors may be able to offer results that are, or that are perceived to be, substantially similar to or better than those generated by our services. This may force us to compete on additional service attributes and to expend significant resources in order to remain competitive.

 

As a result of our variable sales and implementation cycles, we may be unable to recognize revenue to offset expenditures, which could result in fluctuations in our quarterly results of operations or otherwise harm our future operating results.

 

The sales cycle for our services can be variable, typically ranging from three to five months from initial contact to contract execution. During the sales cycle, we expend time and resources, and we do not recognize any revenue to offset such expenditures. Our implementation cycle is also variable, typically ranging from three to five months from contract execution to completion of implementation. Some of our new-client set-up projects are complex and require a lengthy delay and significant implementation work. Each client’s situation is different, and unanticipated difficulties and delays may arise as a result of failure by us or by the client to meet our respective implementation responsibilities. In some cases, especially those involving larger clients, the sales cycle and the implementation cycle may exceed the typical ranges by substantial margins. During the implementation cycle, we expend substantial time, effort, and financial resources implementing our services, but accounting principles do not allow us to recognize the resulting revenue until the service has been implemented, at which time we begin recognition of implementation revenue over the life of the contract. This could harm our future operating results.

After a client contract is signed, we provide an implementation process for the client during which appropriate connections and registrations are established and checked, data is loaded into our athenaNet system, data tables are set up, and practice personnel are given initial training. The length and details of this implementation process vary widely from client to client. Typically, implementation of larger clients takes longer than implementation for smaller clients. Implementation for a given client may be cancelled. Our contracts typically provide that they can be terminated for any reason or for no reason in 90 days. Despite the fact that we typically require a deposit in advance of implementation, some clients have cancelled before our services have been started. In addition, implementation may be delayed or the target dates for completion may be extended into the future for a variety of reasons, including the needs and requirements of the client, delays with payer processing, and the volume and complexity of the implementations awaiting our work. If implementation periods are extended, our provision of the revenue cycle or clinical cycle services upon which we realize most of our revenues will be delayed, and our financial condition may be adversely affected. In addition, cancellation of any implementation after it has begun may involve loss to us of time, effort, and expenses invested in the cancelled implementation process and lost opportunity for implementing paying clients in that same period of time.

 

These factors may contribute to substantial fluctuations in our quarterly operating results, particularly in the near term and during any period in which our sales volume is relatively low. As a result, in future quarters our operating results could fall below the expectations of securities analysts or investors, in which event our stock price would likely decrease.

 

If the revenue of our clients decreases, our revenue will decrease.

 

Under most of our client contracts, we base our charges on a percentage of the revenue that the client realizes while using our services. Many factors may lead to decrease in client revenue, including:

 

 

The current economic situation may give rise to several of these factors. For example, patients who have lost health insurance coverage due to unemployment or who face increased deductibles imposed by financially struggling employers or insurers could reduce the number of visits those patients make to our physician clients. Patients without health insurance or with reduced coverage may also default on their payment obligations at a higher rate than patients with coverage. Added financial stress on our clients could lead to their acquisition or bankruptcy, which could cause the termination of some of our service relationships. Further, despite the cost benefits that we believe our services provide, prospective clients may wish to delay contract decisions due to implementation costs or be reluctant to make any material changes in their established business methods in the current economic climate. With a reduction in tax revenue, state and federal government health care programs, including reimbursement programs such as Medicaid, may be reduced or eliminated, which could negatively impact the payments that our clients receive. If our clients’ revenue decreases for any of the above or other reasons, our revenue will likely decrease.

 

We may not see the benefits of government programs initiated to counter the effects of the current economic situation.

 

Although government programs initiated to counter the effects of the current economic situation may include expenditures made to stimulate business and improve efficiency within the health care sector, we

cannot assure you that we will receive any of those funds. For example, the recent passage of the Health Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, or HITECH Act, authorizes approximately $17 billion in expenditures to further adoption of electronic health records. Although we believe that our service offerings will meet the requirements of the HITECH Act in order for our clients to qualify for reimbursement for implementing and using our services, there can be no certainty that any of the planned reimbursements, if made, will be made in regard to our services.

 

If participants in our channel marketing and sales lead programs do not maintain appropriate relationships with current and potential clients, our sales accomplished with their help or data may be unwound and our payments to them may be deemed improper.

 

We maintain a series of relationships with third parties that we term channel relationships. These relationships take different forms under different contractual language. Some relationships help us identify sales leads. Other relationships permit third parties to act as value-added resellers or as independent sales representatives for our services. In some cases, for example in the case of some membership organizations, these relationships involve endorsement of our services as well as other marketing activities. In each of these cases, we require contractually that the third party disclose information to and/or limit their relationships with potential purchasers of our services for regulatory compliance reasons. If these third parties do not comply with these regulatory requirements or if our requirements are deemed insufficient, sales accomplished with the data or help that they have provided as well as the channel relationship themselves may not be enforceable, may be unwound, and may be deemed to violate relevant laws or regulations. Third parties that, despite our requirements, exercise undue influence over decisions by current and prospective clients, occupy positions with obligations of fidelity or fiduciary obligations to current and prospective clients, or who offer bribes or kickbacks to current and prospective clients or their employees may be committing wrongful or illegal acts that could render any resulting contract between us and the client unenforceable or in violation of relevant laws or regulations. Any misconduct by these third parties with respect to current or prospective clients, any failure to follow contractual requirements, or any insufficiency of those contractual requirements may result in allegations that we have encouraged or participated in wrongful or illegal behavior and that payments to such third parties under our channel contracts are improper. This misconduct could subject us to civil or criminal claims and liabilities, require us to change or terminate some portions of our business, require us to refund portions of our services fees, and adversely affect our revenue and operating margin. Even an unsuccessful challenge of our activities could result in adverse publicity, require costly response from us, impair our ability to attract and maintain clients, and lead analysts or investors to reduce their expectations of our performance, resulting in reduction in the market price of our stock.

 

Failure to manage our rapid growth effectively could increase our expenses, decrease our revenue, and prevent us from implementing our business strategy.

 

We have been experiencing a period of rapid growth. To manage our anticipated future growth effectively, we must continue to maintain, and may need to enhance, our information technology infrastructure and financial and accounting systems and controls, as well as manage expanded operations in geographically distributed locations. We also must attract, train, and retain a significant number of qualified sales and marketing personnel, professional services personnel, software engineers, technical personnel, and management personnel. Failure to manage our rapid growth effectively could lead us to over-invest or under-invest in technology and operations; result in weaknesses in our infrastructure, systems, or controls; give rise to operational mistakes, losses, or loss of productivity or business opportunities; and result in loss of employees and reduced productivity of remaining employees. Our growth could require significant capital expenditures and may divert financial resources from other projects, such as the development of new services. If our management is unable to effectively manage our growth, our expenses may increase more than expected, our revenue could decline or may grow more slowly than expected, and we may be unable to implement our business strategy.

We depend upon a third-party service provider for important processing functions. If this third-party provider does not fulfill its contractual obligations or chooses to discontinue its services, our business and operations could be disrupted and our operating results would be harmed.

 

We have entered into a service agreement with Vision Business Process Solutions Inc., a subsidiary of Perot Systems Corporation, to provide data entry and other services from facilities located in India and the Philippines to support our client service operations. Among other things, this provider processes critical claims data and patient statements. If these services fail or are of poor quality, our business, reputation, and operating results could be harmed. Failure of the service provider to perform satisfactorily could result in client dissatisfaction, disrupt our operations, and adversely affect operating results. With respect to this service provider, we have significantly less control over the systems and processes involved than if we maintained and operated them ourselves, which increases our risk. In some cases, functions necessary to our business are performed on proprietary systems and software to which we have no access. If we need to find an alternative source for performing these functions, we may have to expend significant money, resources, and time to develop the alternative, and if this development is not accomplished in a timely manner and without significant disruption to our business, we may be unable to fulfill our responsibilities to clients or the expectations of clients, with the attendant potential for liability claims and a loss of business reputation, loss of ability to attract or maintain clients, and reduction of our revenue or operating margin.

 

Various risks could interrupt international operations, exposing us to significant costs.

 

We have contracted with companies operating in India and the Philippines for various services, including data entry, outgoing calls to payers, data classification, and software development. In addition, in August 2005, we established a subsidiary in Chennai, India, to conduct research and development activities. International operations expose us to potential operational disruptions as a result of currency valuations, political turmoil, and labor issues. Any such disruptions may have a negative effect on our profits, client satisfaction, and our ability to attract or maintain clients.

 

Because competition for our target employees is intense, we may not be able to attract and retain the highly skilled employees we need to support our planned growth.

 

To continue to execute on our growth plan, we must attract and retain highly qualified personnel. Competition for these personnel is intense, especially for senior sales executives and engineers with high levels of experience in designing and developing software and Internet-related services. We may not be successful in attracting and retaining qualified personnel. We have from time to time in the past experienced, and we expect to continue to experience in the future, difficulty in hiring and retaining highly skilled employees with appropriate qualifications. Many of the companies with which we compete for experienced personnel have greater resources than we have. In addition, in making employment decisions, particularly in the Internet and high-technology industries, job candidates often consider the value of the stock options they are to receive in connection with their employment. Volatility in the price of our stock may, therefore, adversely affect our ability to attract or retain key employees. Furthermore, the new requirement to expense stock options may discourage us from granting the size or type of stock option awards that job candidates require to join our company. If we fail to attract new personnel or fail to retain and motivate our current personnel, our business and future growth prospects could be severely harmed.

 

If we acquire companies or technologies in the future, they could prove difficult to integrate, disrupt our business, dilute stockholder value, and adversely affect our operating results and the value of our common stock.

 

As part of our business strategy, we may acquire, enter into joint ventures with, or make investments in complementary companies, services, and technologies in the future. Acquisitions and investments involve numerous risks, including:

 

 

 

As a result, if we fail to properly evaluate acquisitions or investments, we may not achieve the anticipated benefits of any such acquisitions, we may incur costs in excess of what we anticipate, and management resources and attention may be diverted from other necessary or valuable activities.

 

If we are required to collect sales and use taxes on the services we sell in additional jurisdictions, we may be subject to liability for past sales, and our future sales may decrease.

 

We may lose sales or incur significant expenses should states be successful in imposing state sales and use taxes on our services. A successful assertion by one or more states that we should collect sales or other taxes on the sale of our services could result in substantial tax liabilities for past sales, decrease our ability to compete with traditional retailers, and otherwise harm our business. Each state has different rules and regulations governing sales and use taxes, and these rules and regulations are subject to varying interpretations that may change over time. We review these rules and regulations periodically and, when we believe our services are subject to sales and use taxes in a particular state, voluntarily engage state tax authorities in order to determine how to comply with their rules and regulations. For example, in April 2006 we entered into a settlement agreement with the Ohio Department of Taxation after it determined that we owed sales and use taxes for sales made in the State of Ohio between July 2005 and January 2006. In connection with this settlement, we paid the State of Ohio $0.2 million in taxes, interest, and penalties. Additionally, in November 2004, we began paying sales and use taxes in the State of Texas. We cannot assure you that we will not be subject to sales and use taxes or related penalties for past sales in states where we believe no compliance is necessary.

 

Vendors of services, like us, are typically held responsible by taxing authorities for the collection and payment of any applicable sales and similar taxes. If one or more taxing authorities determines that taxes should have, but have not, been paid with respect to our services, we may be liable for past taxes in addition to taxes going forward. Liability for past taxes may also include very substantial interest and penalty charges. Our client contracts provide that our clients must pay all applicable sales and similar taxes. Nevertheless, clients may be reluctant to pay back taxes and may refuse responsibility for interest or penalties associated with those taxes. If we are required to collect and pay back taxes and the associated interest and penalties, and if our clients fail or refuse to reimburse us for all or a portion of these amounts, we will have incurred unplanned expenses that may be substantial. Moreover, imposition of such taxes on our services going forward will effectively increase the cost of such services to our clients and may adversely affect our ability to retain existing clients or to gain new clients in the areas in which such taxes are imposed.

 

We may also become subject to tax audits or similar procedures in states where we already pay sales and use taxes. For example, in October 2007, we received an audit notification from the Commonwealth of Massachusetts Department of Revenue requesting materials relating to the amount of use tax we paid on account of our purchases for the audit periods between January 1, 2004, and December 31, 2006. The audit was resolved in 2008. We paid a liability of approximately $0.1 million in connection with this audit. The assessment of taxes, interest, and penalties as a result of audits, litigation, or otherwise could be materially adverse to our current and future results of operations and financial condition.

 

We may be unable to adequately protect, and we may incur significant costs in enforcing, our intellectual property and other proprietary rights.

 

Our success depends in part on our ability to enforce our intellectual property and other proprietary rights. We rely upon a combination of trademark, trade secret, copyright, patent, and unfair competition laws, as well as license and access agreements and other contractual provisions, to protect our intellectual property

and other proprietary rights. In addition, we attempt to protect our intellectual property and proprietary information by requiring certain of our employees and consultants to enter into confidentiality, noncompetition, and assignment of inventions agreements. Our attempts to protect our intellectual property may be challenged by others or invalidated through administrative process or litigation. While we have seven U.S. patent applications pending, we currently have no issued patents and may be unable to obtain meaningful patent protection for our technology. We have received a final office action from the USPTO rejecting our oldest and broadest application, although the patent remains subject to continued examination. In addition, if any patents are issued in the future, they may not provide us with any competitive advantages, or may be successfully challenged by third parties. Agreement terms that address non-competition are difficult to enforce in many jurisdictions and may not be enforceable in any particular case. To the extent that our intellectual property and other proprietary rights are not adequately protected, third parties might gain access to our proprietary information, develop and market products or services similar to ours, or use trademarks similar to ours, each of which could materially harm our business. Existing U.S. federal and state intellectual property laws offer only limited protection. Moreover, the laws of other countries in which we now or may in the future conduct operations or contract for services may afford little or no effective protection of our intellectual property. Further, our platform incorporates open source software components that are licensed to us under various public domain licenses. While we believe that we have complied with our obligations under the various applicable licenses for open source software that we use, there is little or no legal precedent governing the interpretation of many of the terms of certain of these licenses, and therefore the potential impact of such terms on our business is somewhat unknown. The failure to adequately protect our intellectual property and other proprietary rights could materially harm our business.

 

In addition, if we resort to legal proceedings to enforce our intellectual property rights or to determine the validity and scope of the intellectual property or other proprietary rights of others, the proceedings could be burdensome and expensive, even if we were to prevail. Any litigation that may be necessary in the future could result in substantial costs and diversion of resources and could have a material adverse effect on our business, operating results, or financial condition.

 

We may be sued by third parties for alleged infringement of their proprietary rights.

 

The software and Internet industries are characterized by the existence of a large number of patents, trademarks, and copyrights and by frequent litigation based on allegations of infringement or other violations of intellectual property rights. Moreover, our business involves the systematic gathering and analysis of data about the requirements and behaviors of payers and other third parties, some or all of which may be claimed to be confidential or proprietary. We have received in the past, and may receive in the future, communications from third parties claiming that we have infringed on the intellectual property rights of others. For example, in 2005, Billingnetwork Patent, Inc. sued us in Florida federal court alleging infringement of its patent issued in 2002 entitled “Integrated Internet Facilitated Billing, Data Processing and Communications System.” Although we settled this case in 2008, the prospect of similar litigation remains. Our technologies may not be able to withstand third-party claims of rights against their use. Any intellectual property claims, with or without merit, could be time-consuming and expensive to resolve, divert management attention from executing our business plan, and require us to pay monetary damages or enter into royalty or licensing agreements. In addition, many of our contracts contain warranties with respect to intellectual property rights, and some require us to indemnify our clients for third-party intellectual property infringement claims, which would increase the cost to us of an adverse ruling on such a claim.

 

Moreover, any settlement or adverse judgment resulting from such a claim could require us to pay substantial amounts of money or obtain a license to continue to use the technology or information that is the subject of the claim, or otherwise restrict or prohibit our use of the technology or information. There can be no assurance that we would be able to obtain a license on commercially reasonable terms, if at all, from third parties asserting an infringement claim; that we would be able to develop alternative technology on a timely basis, if at all; or that we would be able to obtain a license to use a suitable alternative technology to permit us to continue offering, and our clients to continue using, our affected services. Accordingly, an adverse determination could prevent us from offering our services to others. In addition, we may be required to

indemnify our clients for third-party intellectual property infringement claims, which would increase the cost to us of an adverse ruling for such a claim.

 

We are bound by exclusivity provisions that restrict our ability to enter into certain sales and marketing relationships in order to market and sell our services.

 

Our marketing and sales agreement with Worldmed Shared Services, Inc. (d/b/a PSS World Medical Shared Services, Inc.), or PSS, restricts us during the term of the agreement from certain sales and marketing relationships, including relationships with certain competitors of PSS and certain distributors and manufacturers of medical, surgical, or pharmaceutical supplies. This restriction may make it more difficult for us to realize sales, distribution, and income opportunities with certain potential clients — in particular small physician practices — which could adversely affect our operating results.

 

We may require additional capital to support business growth, and this capital might not be available.

 

We intend to continue to make investments to support our business growth and may require additional funds to respond to business challenges or opportunities, including the need to develop new services or enhance our existing service, enhance our operating infrastructure, or acquire complementary businesses and technologies. Accordingly, we may need to engage in equity or debt financings to secure additional funds. If we raise additional funds through further issuances of equity or convertible debt securities, our existing stockholders could suffer significant dilution, and any new equity securities we issue could have rights, preferences, and privileges superior to those of holders of our common stock. Any debt financing secured by us in the future could involve restrictive covenants relating to our capital-raising activities and other financial and operational matters, which may make it more difficult for us to obtain additional capital and to pursue business opportunities, including potential acquisitions. In addition, we may not be able to obtain additional financing on terms favorable to us, if at all. If we are unable to obtain adequate financing or financing on terms satisfactory to us when we require it, our ability to continue to support our business growth and to respond to business challenges could be significantly limited.

 

Our loan and capital lease agreements contain operating and financial covenants that may restrict our business and financing activities.

 

We have loan and capital lease agreements that provide for up to $27.0 million of total borrowings, of which $10.4 million was outstanding at December 31, 2008. Borrowings are secured by substantially all of our assets, including our intellectual property. Our loan agreements restrict our ability to:

 

 

In addition, our credit facilities require us to meet specified minimum financial measurements. The operating and financial restrictions and covenants in these credit facilities, as well as any future financing agreements that we may enter into, may restrict our ability to finance our operations, engage in business activities, or expand or fully pursue our business strategies. Our ability to comply with these covenants may be affected by events beyond our control, and we may not be able to meet those covenants. A breach of any of these covenants could result in a default under either or both of the loan agreements, which could cause all of the outstanding indebtedness under both credit facilities to become immediately due and payable and terminate all commitments to extend further credit.

We have entered into a derivative contract with a financial counterparty, the effectiveness of which is dependent on the continued viability of this financial counterparty, and its nonperformance could harm our financial condition.

 

We have entered into an interest rate swap contract as part of our strategy to mitigate risks related to fluctuations in cash flow from movement in interest rates. The effectiveness of our hedging programs using this instrument is dependent, in part, upon the counterparty to this contract honoring its financial obligations. The recent upheaval in the capital markets has caused the viability of certain counterparties to be questioned. While we have not experienced any losses due to counterparty nonperformance, if our counterparty is unable to perform its obligations in the future, we could be exposed to increased earnings and cash flow volatility.

 

We may incur additional costs as a result of continuing to operate as a public company, and our management may be required to devote substantial time to new compliance initiatives.

 

As a public company, we incur significant legal, accounting, and other expenses that we did not incur as a private company, and greater expenditures may be necessary in the future with the advent of new laws and regulations pertaining to public companies. In addition, the Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002, as well as rules subsequently implemented by the Securities and Exchange Commission and the NASDAQ Global Market, have imposed various requirements on public companies, including requiring changes in corporate governance practices. Our management and other personnel continue to devote a substantial amount of time to these compliance initiatives, and additional laws and regulations may divert further management resources. Moreover, if we are not able to comply with the requirements of new compliance initiatives in a timely manner, the market price of our stock could decline, and we could be subject to sanctions or investigations by the NASDAQ Global Market, the Securities and Exchange Commission, or other regulatory authorities, which would require additional financial and management resources.

 

Current and future litigation against us could be costly and time-consuming to defend.

 

We are from time to time subject to legal proceedings and claims that arise in the ordinary course of business, such as claims brought by our clients in connection with commercial disputes and employment claims made by our current or former employees. Litigation may result in substantial costs and may divert management’s attention and resources, which may seriously harm our business, overall financial condition, and operating results. In addition, legal claims that have not yet been asserted against us may be asserted in the future. Insurance may not cover such claims, be sufficient for one or more such claims, or continue to be available on terms acceptable to us. A claim brought against us that is uninsured or underinsured could result in unanticipated costs, thereby reducing our operating results and leading analysts or potential investors to reduce their expectations of our performance resulting in a reduction in the trading price of our stock.

 

RISKS RELATED TO OUR SERVICE OFFERINGS

 

Our proprietary software or our services may not operate properly, which could damage our reputation, give rise to claims against us, or divert application of our resources from other purposes, any of which could harm our business and operating results.

 

Proprietary software development is time-consuming, expensive, and complex. Unforeseen difficulties can arise. We may encounter technical obstacles, and it is possible that we discover additional problems that prevent our proprietary athenaNet application from operating properly. If athenaNet does not function reliably or fails to achieve client expectations in terms of performance, clients could assert liability claims against us and/or attempt to cancel their contracts with us. This could damage our reputation and impair our ability to attract or maintain clients.

 

Moreover, information services as complex as those we offer have in the past contained, and may in the future develop or contain, undetected defects or errors. We cannot assure you that material performance problems or defects in our services will not arise in the future. Errors may result from receipt, entry, or interpretation of patient information or from interface of our services with legacy systems and data that we did not develop and the function of which is outside of our control. Despite testing, defects or errors may arise in

our existing or new software or service processes. Because changes in payer requirements and practices are frequent and sometimes difficult to determine except through trial and error, we are continuously discovering defects and errors in our software and service processes compared against these requirements and practices. These defects and errors and any failure by us to identify and address them could result in loss of revenue or market share, liability to clients or others, failure to achieve market acceptance or expansion, diversion of development resources, injury to our reputation, and increased service and maintenance costs. Defects or errors in our software and service processes might discourage existing or potential clients from purchasing services from us. Correction of defects or errors could prove to be impossible or impracticable. The costs incurred in correcting any defects or errors or in responding to resulting claims or liability may be substantial and could adversely affect our operating results.

 

In addition, clients relying on our services to collect, manage, and report clinical, business, and administrative data may have a greater sensitivity to service errors and security vulnerabilities than clients of software products in general. We market and sell services that, among other things, provide information to assist care providers in tracking and treating ill patients. Any operational delay in or failure of our technology or service processes may result in the disruption of patient care and could cause harm to patients and thereby harm our business and operating results.

 

Our clients or their patients may assert claims against us alleging that they suffered damages due to a defect, error, or other failure of our software or service processes. A product liability claim or errors or omissions claim could subject us to significant legal defense costs and adverse publicity, regardless of the merits or eventual outcome of such a claim.

 

If our security measures are breached or fail, and unauthorized access is obtained to a client’s data, our services may be perceived as not being secure, clients may curtail or stop using our services, and we may incur significant liabilities.

 

Our services involve the storage and transmission of clients’ proprietary information and protected health information of patients. Because of the sensitivity of this information, security features of our software are very important. If our security measures are breached or fail as a result of third-party action, employee error, malfeasance, insufficiency, defective design, or otherwise, someone may be able to obtain unauthorized access to client or patient data. As a result, our reputation could be damaged, our business may suffer, and we could face damages for contract breach, penalties for violation of applicable laws or regulations, and significant costs for remediation and remediation efforts to prevent future occurrences. We rely upon our clients as users of our system for key activities to promote security of the system and the data within it, such as administration of client-side access credentialing and control of client-side display of data. On occasion, our clients have failed to perform these activities. Failure of clients to perform these activities may result in claims against us that this reliance was misplaced, which could expose us to significant expense and harm to our reputation. Because techniques used to obtain unauthorized access or to sabotage systems change frequently and generally are not recognized until launched against a target, we may be unable to anticipate these techniques or to implement adequate preventive measures. If an actual or perceived breach of our security occurs, the market perception of the effectiveness of our security measures could be harmed and we could lose sales and clients. In addition, our clients may authorize or enable third parties to access their client data or the data of their patients on our systems. Because we do not control such access, we cannot ensure the complete propriety of that access or integrity or security of such data in our systems.

 

Failure by our clients to obtain proper permissions and waivers may result in claims against us or may limit or prevent our use of data, which could harm our business.

 

We require our clients to provide necessary notices and to obtain necessary permissions and waivers for use and disclosure of the information that we receive, and we require contractual assurances from them that they have done so and will do so. If they do not obtain necessary permissions and waivers, then our use and disclosure of information that we receive from them or on their behalf may be limited or prohibited by state or federal privacy laws or other laws. This could impair our functions, processes, and databases that reflect, contain, or are based upon such data and may prevent use of such data. In addition, this could interfere with

or prevent creation or use of rules, and analyses or limit other data-driven activities that benefit us. Moreover, we may be subject to claims or liability for use or disclosure of information by reason of lack of valid notice, permission, or waiver. These claims or liabilities could subject us to unexpected costs and adversely affect our operating results.

 

Various events could interrupt clients’ access to athenaNet, exposing us to significant costs.

 

The ability to access athenaNet is critical to our clients’ cash flow and business viability. Our operations and facilities are vulnerable to interruption and/or damage from a number of sources, many of which are beyond our control, including, without limitation: (i) power loss and telecommunications failures; (ii) fire, flood, hurricane, and other natural disasters; (iii) software and hardware errors, failures, or crashes in our own systems or in other systems; and (iv) computer viruses, hacking, and similar disruptive problems in our own systems and in other systems. We attempt to mitigate these risks through various means, including redundant infrastructure, disaster recovery plans, separate test systems, and change control and system security measures, but our precautions will not protect against all potential problems. If clients’ access is interrupted because of problems in the operation of our facilities, we could be exposed to significant claims by clients or their patients, particularly if the access interruption is associated with problems in the timely delivery of funds due to clients or medical information relevant to patient care. Our plans for disaster recovery and business continuity rely upon third-party providers of related services, and if those vendors fail us at a time that our systems are not operating correctly, we could incur a loss of revenue and liability for failure to fulfill our obligations. Any significant instances of system downtime could negatively affect our reputation and ability to retain clients and sell our services, which would adversely impact our revenues.

 

In addition, retention and availability of patient care and physician reimbursement data are subject to federal and state laws governing record retention, accuracy, and access. Some laws impose obligations on our clients and on us to produce information to third parties and to amend or expunge data at their direction. Our failure to meet these obligations may result in liability that could increase our costs and reduce our operating results.

 

Interruptions or delays in service from our third-party data-hosting facilities could impair the delivery of our services and harm our business.

 

We currently serve our clients from a third-party data-hosting facility located in Bedford, Massachusetts, operated by Sentinel Properties-Bedford, LLC. In addition, in 2007, we signed a disaster recovery contract with a major provider of such services, Sungard Availability Services, LP, so that, in the event of a total disaster at our primary data centers, we could become operational in an acceptable timeframe at a back-up location. However, we do not control the operation of any of these facilities, and they are vulnerable to damage or interruption from earthquakes, floods, fires, power loss, telecommunications failures, and similar events. They are also subject to break-ins, sabotage, intentional acts of vandalism, and similar misconduct. Despite precautions taken at these facilities, the occurrence of a natural disaster or an act of terrorism, a decision to close the facilities without adequate notice, or other unanticipated problems at both facilities could result in lengthy interruptions in our service. Even with the disaster recovery arrangements, our services could be interrupted.

 

We rely on Internet infrastructure, bandwidth providers, data center providers, other third parties, and our own systems for providing services to our users, and any failure or interruption in the services provided by these third parties or our own systems could expose us to litigation and negatively impact our relationships with users, adversely affecting our brand and our business.

 

Our ability to deliver our Internet- and telecommunications-based services is dependent on the development and maintenance of the infrastructure of the Internet and other telecommunications services by third parties. This includes maintenance of a reliable network backbone with the necessary speed, data capacity, and security for providing reliable Internet access and services and reliable telephone, facsimile, and pager systems with regard to the services that we acquired from MedicalMessaging. Our services are designed to operate without interruption in accordance with our service level commitments. However, we have experienced and

expect that we will in the future experience interruptions and delays in services and availability from time to time. We rely on internal systems as well as third-party vendors, including data center, bandwidth, and telecommunications equipment providers, to provide our services. We do not maintain redundant systems or facilities for some of these services. In the event of a catastrophic event with respect to one or more of these systems or facilities, we may experience an extended period of system unavailability, which could negatively impact our relationship with users. To operate without interruption, both we and our service providers must guard against:

 

 

Any disruption in the network access, telecommunications, or co-location services provided by these third-party providers or any failure of or by these third-party providers or our own systems to handle current or higher volume of use could significantly harm our business. We exercise limited control over these third-party vendors, which increases our vulnerability to problems with services they provide.

 

Any errors, failures, interruptions, or delays experienced in connection with these third-party technologies and information services or our own systems could negatively impact our relationships with users and adversely affect our business and could expose us to third-party liabilities. Although we maintain insurance for our business, the coverage under our policies may not be adequate to compensate us for all losses that may occur. In addition, we cannot provide assurance that we will continue to be able to obtain adequate insurance coverage at an acceptable cost.

 

The reliability and performance of the Internet may be harmed by increased usage or by denial-of-service attacks. The Internet has experienced a variety of outages and other delays as a result of damages to portions of its infrastructure, and it could face outages and delays in the future. These outages and delays could reduce the level of Internet usage as well as the availability of the Internet to us for delivery of our Internet-based services.

 

We rely on third-party computer hardware and software that may be difficult to replace or that could cause errors or failures of our services, which could damage our reputation, harm our ability to attract and maintain clients, and decrease our revenue.

 

We rely on computer hardware purchased or leased and software licensed from third parties in order to offer our services, including database software from Oracle Corporation. These licenses are generally commercially available on varying terms; however, it is possible that this hardware and software may not continue to be available on commercially reasonable terms, or at all. Any loss of the right to use any of this hardware or software could result in delays in the provisioning of our services until equivalent technology is either developed by us, or, if available, is identified, obtained, and integrated, which could harm our business. Any errors or defects in third-party hardware or software could result in errors or a failure of our services, which could damage our reputation, harm our ability to attract and maintain clients, and decrease our revenue.

 

We are subject to the effect of payer and provider conduct that we cannot control and that could damage our reputation with clients and result in liability claims that increase our expenses.

 

We offer certain electronic claims submission services for which we rely on content from clients, payers, and others. While we have implemented certain features and safeguards designed to maximize the accuracy and completeness of claims content, these features and safeguards may not be sufficient to prevent inaccurate claims data from being submitted to payers. Should inaccurate claims data be submitted to payers, we may experience poor operational results and may be subject to liability claims, which could damage our reputation with clients and result in liability claims that increase our expenses.

If our services fail to provide accurate and timely information, or if our content or any other element of any of our services is associated with faulty clinical decisions or treatment, we could have liability to clients, clinicians, or patients, which could adversely affect our results of operations.

 

Our software, content, and services are used to assist clinical decision-making and provide information about patient medical histories and treatment plans. If our software, content, or services fail to provide accurate and timely information or are associated with faulty clinical decisions or treatment, then clients, clinicians, or their patients could assert claims against us that could result in substantial costs to us, harm our reputation in the industry, and cause demand for our services to decline.

 

Our proprietary athenaClinicals service is utilized in clinical decision-making, provides access to patient medical histories, and assists in creating patient treatment plans, including the issuance of prescription drugs. If our athenaClinicals service fails to provide accurate and timely information, or if our content or any other element of that service is associated with faulty clinical decisions or treatment, we could have liability to clients, clinicians, or patients.

 

The assertion of such claims and ensuing litigation, regardless of its outcome, could result in substantial cost to us, divert management’s attention from operations, damage our reputation, and decrease market acceptance of our services. We attempt to limit by contract our liability for damages and to require that our clients assume responsibility for medical care and approve key system rules, protocols, and data. Despite these precautions, the allocations of responsibility and limitations of liability set forth in our contracts may not be enforceable, be binding upon patients, or otherwise protect us from liability for damages.

 

We maintain general liability and insurance coverage, but this coverage may not continue to be available on acceptable terms or may not be available in sufficient amounts to cover one or more large claims against us. In addition, the insurer might disclaim coverage as to any future claim. One or more large claims could exceed our available insurance coverage.

 

Our proprietary software may contain errors or failures that are not detected until after the software is introduced or updates and new versions are released. It is challenging for us to test our software for all potential problems because it is difficult to simulate the wide variety of computing environments or treatment methodologies that our clients may deploy or rely upon. From time to time we have discovered defects or errors in our software, and such defects or errors can be expected to appear in the future. Defects and errors that are not timely detected and remedied could expose us to risk of liability to clients, clinicians, and patients and cause delays in introduction of new services, result in increased costs and diversion of development resources, require design modifications, or decrease market acceptance or client satisfaction with our services.

 

If any of these risks occur, they could materially adversely affect our business, financial condition, or results of operations.

 

We may be liable for use of incorrect or incomplete data that we provide, which could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

 

We store and display data for use by healthcare providers in treating patients. Our clients or third parties provide us with most of these data. If these data are incorrect or incomplete or if we make mistakes in the capture or input of these data, adverse consequences, including death, may occur and give rise to product liability and other claims against us. In addition, a court or government agency may take the position that our storage and display of health information exposes us to personal injury liability or other liability for wrongful delivery or handling of healthcare services or erroneous health information. While we maintain insurance coverage, we cannot assure that this coverage will prove to be adequate or will continue to be available on acceptable terms, if at all. Even unsuccessful claims could result in substantial costs and diversion of management resources. A claim brought against us that is uninsured or under-insured could harm our business, financial condition, and results of operations.

RISKS RELATED TO REGULATION

 

Government regulation of healthcare creates risks and challenges with respect to our compliance efforts and our business strategies.

 

The healthcare industry is highly regulated and is subject to changing political, legislative, regulatory, and other influences. Existing and new laws and regulations affecting the healthcare industry could create unexpected liabilities for us, cause us to incur additional costs, and restrict our operations. Many healthcare laws are complex, and their application to specific services and relationships may not be clear. In particular, many existing healthcare laws and regulations, when enacted, did not anticipate the healthcare information services that we provide, and these laws and regulations may be applied to our services in ways that we do not anticipate. Our failure to accurately anticipate the application of these laws and regulations, or our other failure to comply, could create liability for us, result in adverse publicity, and negatively affect our business. Some of the risks we face from healthcare regulation are described below:

 

 

In most cases where we are permitted to do so, we calculate charges for our services based on a percentage of the collections that our clients receive as a result of our services. To the extent that violations or liability for violations of these laws and regulations require intent, it may be alleged that this percentage calculation provides us or our employees with incentive to commit or overlook fraud or abuse in connection with submission and payment of reimbursement claims. The U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has stated that it is concerned that percentage-based billing services may encourage billing companies to commit or to overlook fraudulent or abusive practices.

 

In addition, we may contract with third parties that offer software relating to the selection or verification of codes used to identify and classify the services for which reimbursement is sought. Submission of codes that do not accurately reflect the services provided or the location or method of their provision may constitute a violation of false or fraudulent claims laws. Our ability to comply with these laws depends on the coding decisions made by our clients and the accuracy of our vendors’ software and services in suggesting possible codes to our clients and verifying that proper codes have been selected.

 

 

 

We may not be able to adequately address the business risks created by HIPAA implementation. Furthermore, we are unable to predict what changes to HIPAA or other laws or regulations might be made in the future or how those changes could affect our business or the costs of compliance. In addition, the federal Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology, or ONCHIT, is coordinating the ongoing development of national standards for creating an interoperable health information technology infrastructure based on the widespread adoption of electronic health records in the healthcare sector. We are unable to predict what, if any, impact the changes in such standards will have on our compliance costs or our services.

 

In addition, some payers and clearinghouses with which we conduct business interpret HIPAA transaction requirements differently than we do. Where clearinghouses or payers require conformity with their interpretations as a condition of effecting transactions, we seek to comply with their interpretations.

 

The HIPAA transaction standards include proper use of procedure and diagnosis codes. Since these codes are selected or approved by our clients, and since we do not verify their propriety, some of our capability to comply with the transaction standards is dependent on the proper conduct of our clients.

 

Among our services, we provide telephone reminder services to patients, Internet- and telephone-based access to medical test results, pager and email notification to practices of patient calls, and patient call answering services. We believe that reasonable efforts to prevent disclosure of individually identifiable health information have been and are being taken in connection with these services, including the use of multiple-password security. However, any failure of our clients to provide accurate contact information for their patients or physicians or any breach of our telecommunications systems could result in a disclosure of individually identifiable health information.

 

In addition to the HIPAA Privacy and Security Rules, most states have enacted patient confidentiality laws that protect against the disclosure of confidential medical information, and many states have adopted or are considering further legislation in this area, including privacy safeguards, security standards, and data security breach notification requirements. Such state laws, if more stringent than HIPAA requirements, are not preempted by the federal requirements, and we are required to comply with them.

 

Failure by us to comply with any of the federal and state standards regarding patient privacy may subject us to penalties, including civil monetary penalties and, in some circumstances, criminal penalties. In addition, such failure may injure our reputation and adversely affect our ability to retain clients and attract new clients.

 

 

 

 

The FDA can impose extensive requirements governing pre- and post-market conditions such as service investigation and others relating to approval, labeling, and manufacturing. In addition, the FDA can impose extensive requirements governing development controls and quality assurance processes.

 

Potential regulatory requirements placed on our software, services, and content could impose increased costs on us, delay or prevent our introduction of new services types, and impair the function or value of our existing service types.

 

Our services are and are likely to continue to be subject to increasing regulatory requirements in a multitude of ways. As these requirements proliferate, we must change or adapt our services and our software to comply. Changing regulatory requirements may render our services obsolete or may block us from accomplishing our work or from developing new services. This may in turn impose additional costs upon us to comply or to further develop services or software. It may also make introduction of new service types more costly or more time consuming than we currently anticipate. It may even prevent such introduction by us of new services or continuation of our existing services unprofitably or impossible.

 

Potential additional regulation of the disclosure of health information outside the United States may adversely affect our operations and may increase our costs.

 

Federal or state governmental authorities may impose additional data security standards or additional privacy or other restrictions on the collection, use, transmission, and other disclosures of health information. Legislation has been proposed at various times at both the federal and the state level that would limit, forbid, or regulate the use or transmission of medical information outside of the United States. Such legislation, if adopted, may render our use of our off-shore partners, such as our data-entry and customer service provider, Vision Business Process Solutions Inc., for work related to such data impracticable or substantially more expensive. Alternative processing of such information within the United States may involve substantial delay in implementation and increased cost.

 

Errors or illegal activity on the part of our clients may result in claims against us.

 

We require our clients to provide us with accurate and appropriate data and directives for our actions. We also rely upon our clients as users of our system to perform key activities in order to produce proper claims for reimbursement. Failure of our clients to provide these data and directives or to perform these activities may result in claims against us alleging that our reliance was misplaced or unreasonable or that we have facilitated or otherwise participated in submission of false claims.

 

Our services present the potential for embezzlement, identity theft, or other similar illegal behavior by our employees or subcontractors with respect to third parties.

 

Among other things, our services involve handling mail from payers and from patients for many of our clients, and this mail frequently includes original checks and/or credit card information and occasionally includes currency. Even in those cases in which we do not handle original documents or mail, our services also involve the use and disclosure of personal and business information that could be used to impersonate third parties or otherwise gain access to their data or funds. If any of our employees or subcontractors takes,

converts, or misuses such funds, documents, or data, we could be liable for damages, and our business reputation could be damaged or destroyed. In addition, we could be perceived to have facilitated or participated in illegal misappropriation of funds, documents, or data and therefore be subject to civil or criminal liability.

 

Potential subsidy of services similar to ours may reduce client demand.

 

Recently, entities such as the Massachusetts Healthcare Consortium have offered to subsidize adoption by physicians of electronic health record technology. In addition, federal regulations have been changed to permit such subsidy from additional sources subject to certain limitations, and the current administration has passed legislation, called the HITECH Act, that will provide federal support for EMR initiatives. To the extent that we do not qualify or participate in such subsidy programs, demand for our services may be reduced, which may decrease our revenues.

 

RISKS RELATED TO OWNERSHIP OF OUR COMMON STOCK

 

An active, liquid, and orderly market for our common stock may not be sustained.

 

Prior to our initial public offering in September 2007, there was no market for shares of our common stock. An active trading market for our common stock may not be sustained, which could depress the market price of our common stock and could affect your ability to sell your shares. The trading price of our common stock has been and is likely to remain highly volatile and could be subject to wide fluctuations in response to various factors, some of which are beyond our control. In addition to the factors discussed in this “Risk Factors” section and elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K, these factors include:

 

 

In addition, the stock market in general, and the market for Internet-related companies in particular, has experienced extreme price and volume fluctuations that have often been unrelated or disproportionate to the operating performance of those companies. Securities class action litigation has often been instituted against companies following periods of volatility in the overall market and in the market price of a company’s securities. This litigation, if instituted against us, could result in very substantial costs; divert our management’s attention and resources; and harm our business, operating results, and financial condition.

 

If a substantial number of shares become available for sale and are sold in a short period of time, the market price of our common stock could decline.

 

If our existing stockholders sell a large number of shares of our common stock or the public market perceives that these sales may occur, the market price of our common stock could decline. As of December 31, 2008, we had approximately 33.4 million shares of common stock outstanding. Moreover, the holders of shares of common stock have rights, subject to some conditions, to require us to file registration statements covering

the shares they currently hold, or to include these shares in registration statements that we may file for ourselves or other stockholders:

 

We have also registered all common stock that we may issue under our 1997 Stock Plan, 2000 Stock Plan, 2007 Stock Option and Incentive Plan, and 2007 Employee Stock Purchase Plan. As of December 31, 2008, we had outstanding options to purchase approximately 3.0 million shares of common stock (approximately 1.6 million of which were exercisable at December 31, 2008) that, if exercised, will result in those shares becoming available for sale in the public market. If a large number of these shares are sold in the public market, the sales could reduce the trading price of our common stock.

 

A limited number of stockholders have the ability to influence the outcome of director elections and other matters requiring stockholder approval.

 

As of December 31, 2008, our directors, executive officers, and their affiliated entities beneficially owned more than 9% of our outstanding common stock. These stockholders, if they act together, could exert substantial influence over matters requiring approval by our stockholders, including the election of directors, the amendment of our certificate of incorporation and by-laws, and the approval of mergers or other business combination transactions. This concentration of ownership may discourage, delay, or prevent a change in control of our company, which could deprive our stockholders of an opportunity to receive a premium for their stock as part of a sale of our company, and might reduce our stock price. These actions may be taken even if they are opposed by other stockholders.

 

Actual or potential sales of our stock by our employees, including members of our senior management team, pursuant to pre-arranged stock trading plans could cause our stock price to fall or prevent it from increasing for numerous reasons, and actual or potential sales by such persons could be viewed negatively by other investors.

 

In accordance with the guidelines specified under Rule 10b5-1 of the Securities and Exchange Act of 1934 and our policies regarding stock transactions, a number of our employees, including members of our senior management team, have adopted and will continue to adopt pre-arranged stock trading plans to sell a portion of our common stock. Generally, stock sales under such plans by members of our senior management team and directors require public filings. Actual or potential sales of our stock by such persons could cause our stock price to fall or prevent it from increasing for numerous reasons. For example, a substantial amount of our common stock becoming available (or being perceived to become available) for sale in the public market could cause the market price of our common stock to fall or prevent it from increasing. Also, actual or potential sales by such persons could be viewed negatively by other investors.

 

Provisions in our certificate of incorporation and by-laws or Delaware law might discourage, delay, or prevent a change of control of our company or changes in our management and, therefore, depress the trading price of our common stock.

 

Provisions of our certificate of incorporation and by-laws and Delaware law may discourage, delay, or prevent a merger, acquisition, or other change in control that stockholders may consider favorable, including transactions in which you might otherwise receive a premium for your shares of our common stock. These provisions may also prevent or frustrate attempts by our stockholders to replace or remove our management. These provisions include:

 

 

The affirmative vote of the holders of at least 75% of our shares of capital stock entitled to vote is necessary to amend or repeal the above provisions of our certificate of incorporation. As our board of directors

has the ability to designate the terms of and issue new series of preferred stock without stockholder approval, the effective number of votes required to make such changes could increase. Also, absent approval of our board of directors, our by-laws may only be amended or repealed by the affirmative vote of the holders of at least 75% of our shares of capital stock entitled to vote.

 

In addition, Section 203 of the Delaware General Corporation Law prohibits a publicly held Delaware corporation from engaging in a business combination with an interested stockholder (generally an entity that, together with its affiliates, owns, or within the last three years has owned, 15% or more of our voting stock) for a period of three years after the date of the transaction in which the entity became an interested stockholder, unless the business combination is approved in a prescribed manner.

 

The existence of the foregoing provisions and anti-takeover measures could limit the price that investors might be willing to pay in the future for shares of our common stock. They could also deter potential acquirers of our company, thereby reducing the likelihood that you could receive a premium for your common stock in an acquisition.

 

We do not currently intend to pay dividends on our common stock, and, consequently, your ability to achieve a return on your investment will depend on appreciation in the price of our common stock.

 

We have never declared or paid any cash dividends on our common stock and do not currently intend to do so for the foreseeable future. We currently intend to invest our future earnings, if any, to fund our growth. Therefore, you are not likely to receive any dividends on your common stock for the foreseeable future, and the success of an investment in shares of our common stock will depend upon any future appreciation in its value. There is no guarantee that shares of our common stock will appreciate in value or even maintain the price at which our stockholders have purchased their shares.

 

 

None.

 

 

As of December 31, 2008, we own a complex of buildings, including approximately 133,000 square feet of office space, on approximately 53 acres of land in Belfast, Maine. We lease the remainder of our facilities. Our primary location is 311 Arsenal Street in Watertown, Massachusetts, where we lease 133,616 square feet, which is under lease until July 1, 2015. We also lease 2,562 square feet in Rome, Georgia, through August 31, 2009, and 11,146 square feet in Chennai, India through our direct subsidiary, athenahealth Technology Private Limited, which is currently leased on a month-to-month basis. Our servers are housed at our headquarters and our Belfast, Maine, offices and also in data centers in Bedford, Massachusetts, and Waltham, Massachusetts. Our owned property in Belfast, Maine, is subject to a mortgage that secures any and all amounts we may from time to time owe under our credit facility or any other transaction with Bank of America, N.A.

 

 

From time to time, we may be subject to legal proceedings and claims in the ordinary course of business. We are not currently aware of any such proceedings or claims that we believe will have, individually or in the aggregate, a material adverse effect on our business, results of operations, or financial condition.

 

 

None.

 

 

Our common stock has been listed on the NASDAQ Global Market under the trading symbol “ATHN” since our initial public offering on September 20, 2007. Prior to that time, there was no public market for our common stock. The following table sets forth the high and low closing sales prices of our common stock, as reported by the NASDAQ Global Market, for each of the periods listed.

 

 

Holders of Record

 

The last reported sale price of our common stock on the NASDAQ Global Market on February 26, 2009, was $34.17 per share. As of February 26, 2009, we had 377 holders of record of our common stock. Because many shares of common stock are held by brokers and other institutions on behalf of stockholders, we are unable to estimate the total number of stockholders represented by these record holders.

 

Dividend Policy

 

We have never declared or paid any dividends on our capital stock, and our loan agreements restrict our ability to pay dividends. We currently intend to retain any future earnings and do not intend to declare or pay cash dividends on our common stock in the foreseeable future. Any future determination to pay dividends will be, subject to applicable law, at the discretion of our board of directors and will depend upon, among other factors, our results of operations, financial condition, contractual restrictions, and capital requirements.

 

Recent Sales of Unregistered Securities

 

None.

 

Securities Authorized for Issuance under Equity Compensation Plans

 

The following table sets forth information regarding our equity compensation plans in effect as of December 31, 2008. Each of our equity compensation plans is an “employee benefit plan” as defined by Rule 405 of Regulation C of the Securities Act of 1933.

 

 

Stock Performance Graph

 

The following performance graph and related information shall not be deemed “soliciting material” or to be “filed” with the Securities and Exchange Commission, nor shall such information be incorporated by reference into any future filing under the Securities Act of 1933 or Securities Exchange Act of 1934, each as amended, except to the extent that we specifically incorporate it by reference into such filing.

 

Set forth below is a graph comparing the cumulative total stockholder return on our common stock with the NASDAQ US Composite Index and the NASDAQ Computer & Data Processing Index for the period starting with our initial public offering on September 20, 2007, through the end of our fiscal year ended December 31, 2008. The graph assumes an investment of $100.00 made at the closing of trading on September 20, 2007, in each of (i) our common stock, (ii) the stocks comprising the NASDAQ US Composite Index, and (iii) stocks comprising the NASDAQ Computer & Data Processing Index. All values assume reinvestment of the full amount of all dividends, if any, into additional shares of the same class of equity securities at the frequency with which dividends are paid on such securities during the applicable time period.

 

 

 

Use of Proceeds from Registered Securities

 

We registered shares of our common stock in connection with our initial public offering under the Securities Act of 1933, as amended. Our Registration Statement on Form S-1 (No. 333-143998) in connection with our initial public offering was declared effective by the SEC on September 20, 2007. The offering commenced as of September 25, 2007, and did not terminate before all securities were sold. The offering was co-managed by the underwriters Goldman, Sachs & Co; Merrill Lynch, Pierce, Fenner & Smith, Incorporated; Piper Jaffray &Co.; and Jefferies & Company, Inc. A total of 7,229,842 shares of common stock was registered and sold in the initial public offering, including 943,023 shares of common stock sold upon exercise of the underwriters’ over-allotment option, at a price to the public of $18.00 per share. The offering closed on September 25, 2007, and we received net proceeds of approximately $81.3 million (after underwriters’ discounts and commissions of approximately $6.3 million and additional offering-related costs of approximately $2.4 million). No underwriting discounts and commissions or offering expenses were paid directly or indirectly to any of our directors or officers (or their associates) or persons owning ten percent or more of any class of our equity securities or to any other affiliates.

 

There has been no material change in the planned use of proceeds from our initial public offering as described in our final prospectus filed with the SEC pursuant to Rule 424(b). We expect to use the remaining net proceeds for capital expenditures, working capital, and other general corporate purposes. We may also use

a portion of our net proceeds to fund acquisitions of complementary businesses, products, or technologies or to fund expansion of our operations facilities. However, we do not have agreements or commitments for any specific acquisitions at this time. Pending the uses described above, we have invested the net proceeds in a variety of short-term, interest-bearing, investment-grade securities. There has been no material change in the planned use of proceeds from our initial public offering from that described in the final prospectus dated September 19, 2007, filed by us with the SEC pursuant to Rule 424(b).

 

At December 31, 2008, we had approximately $28.9 million invested in cash and cash equivalents and $58.1 million in short-term investments.

 

Issuer Purchases of Equity Securities

 

During the quarter ended December 31, 2008, there were no purchases made by us, on our behalf, or by any “affiliated purchasers” of shares of our common stock.

 

The following tables summarize our consolidated financial data for the periods presented. You should read the following financial information together with the information under “Management’s Discussion and Analysis of Financial Condition and Results of Operations” and our consolidated financial statements and the related notes to these consolidated financial statements appearing elsewhere in this Form 10-K. Historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected in future periods.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The following discussion and analysis should be read in conjunction with our consolidated financial statements, the accompanying notes to these financial statements, and the other financial information that appear elsewhere in this Form 10-K. This discussion contains predictions, estimates, and other forward-looking statements that involve a number of risks and uncertainties. In some cases, you can identify forward-looking statements by terminology such as “may,” “will,” “should,” “expects,” “plans,” “anticipates,” “believes,” “estimates,” “predicts,” “potential,” or “continue”; the negative of these terms; or other comparable terminology. Actual results may differ materially from those discussed in these forward-looking statements due to a number of factors, including those set forth in the section entitled “Risk Factors” and elsewhere in this Form 10-K.

 

Although we believe that the expectations reflected in the forward-looking statements are reasonable, we cannot guarantee future results, levels of activity, performance, or achievements. Except as required by law, we are under no duty to update or revise any of the forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events, or otherwise, after the date of Annual Report on Form 10-K.

 

Overview

 

athenahealth is a leading provider of Internet-based business services for physician practices. Our service offerings are based on four integrated components: our proprietary Internet-based software, our continually updated database of payer reimbursement process rules, our back-office service operations that perform administrative aspects of billing and clinical data management for physician practices, and our automated and

live patient communication services. Our principal offering, athenaCollector, automates and manages billing-related functions for physician practices and includes a medical practice management platform. We have also developed a service offering, athenaClinicals, that automates and manages medical record-related functions for physician practices and includes an electronic medical record, or EMR, platform. ReminderCall, the newest offering from athenahealth, is our automated appointment reminder system that allows patients to either confirm the appointment or request rescheduling; we plan on combining ReminderCall with test result, prescription refill, collection, and other patient communications offerings in our athenaCommunicator services suite that we expect to beta launch in 2009. We refer to athenaCollector as our revenue cycle management service, athenaClinicals as our clinical cycle management service, and athenaCommunicator as our patient cycle management service. Our services are designed to help our clients achieve faster reimbursement from payers, reduce error rates, increase collections, lower operating costs, improve operational workflow controls, improve patient satisfaction and compliance, and more efficiently manage clinical and billing information.

 

In 2008, we generated revenue of $139.6 million from the sale of our services compared to $100.8 million in 2007. Given the scope of our market opportunity, we have increased our spending each year on growth, innovation, and infrastructure. Despite increased spending in these areas, higher revenue and lower direct operating expense as a percentage of revenue have led to greater net profits.

 

Our revenues are predominately derived from business services that we provide on an ongoing basis. This revenue is generally determined as a percentage of payments collected by our clients, so the key drivers of our revenue include growth in the number of physicians working within our client accounts and the collections of these physicians. To provide these services, we incur expense in several categories, including direct operating, selling and marketing, research and development, general and administrative, and depreciation and amortization expense. In general, our direct operating expense increases as our volume of work increases, whereas our selling and marketing expense increases in proportion to our rate of adding new accounts to our network of physician clients. Our other expense categories are less directly related to growth of revenues and relate more to our planning for the future, our overall business management activities, and our infrastructure. As our revenues have grown, the difference between our revenue and our direct operating expense also has grown, which has afforded us the ability to spend more in other categories of expense and to experience an increase in operating margin. We manage our cash and our use of credit facilities to ensure adequate liquidity, in adherence to related financial covenants.

 

Sources of Revenue

 

We derive our revenue from two sources: from business services associated with our revenue cycle and clinical cycle offerings and from implementation and other services. Implementation and other services consist primarily of professional services fees related to assisting clients with the initial implementation of our services and for ongoing training and related support services. Business services accounted for approximately 95%, 94%, and 93% of our total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2008, 2007, and 2006, respectively. Business services fees are typically 2% to 8% of a practice’s total collections depending upon the size, complexity, and other characteristics of the practice, plus a per-statement charge for billing statements that are generated for patients. Accordingly, business services fees are largely driven by: the number of physician practices we serve, the number of physicians working in those physician practices, the volume of activity and related collections of those physicians, and our contracted rates. There is moderate seasonality in the activity level of physician offices. Typically, discretionary use of physician services declines in the late summer and during the holiday season, which leads to a decline in collections by our physician clients about 30 to 50 days later. None of our clients accounted for more than 5% of our total revenues for the years ended December 31, 2008, 2007, or 2006.

 

Operating Expense

 

Direct Operating Expense.  Direct operating expense consists primarily of salaries, benefits, claim processing costs, other direct costs, and stock-based compensation related to personnel who provide services to clients, including staff who implement new clients. Although we expect that direct operating expense will increase in absolute terms for the foreseeable future, the direct operating expense is expected to decline as a

percentage of revenues as we further increase the percentage of transactions that are resolved on the first attempt. In addition, over the longer term, we expect to increase our overall level of automation and to reduce our direct operating expense as a percentage of revenues as we become a larger operation, with higher volumes of work in particular functions, geographies, and medical specialties. In 2008 and 2007, we include in direct operating expense the service costs associated with our athenaClinicals offering, which includes transaction handling related to lab requisitions, lab results entry, fax classification, and other services. We also expect these costs to increase in absolute terms for the foreseeable future but to decline as a percentage of revenue. This decrease will be driven by increased levels of automation and by economies of scale. Direct operating expense does not include allocated amounts for rent, depreciation, and amortization, except for amortization related to purchased intangible assets.

 

Selling and Marketing Expense.  Selling and marketing expense consists primarily of marketing programs (including trade shows, brand messaging, and on-line initiatives) and personnel-related expense for sales and marketing employees (including salaries, benefits, commissions, stock-based compensation, non-billable travel, lodging, and other out-of-pocket employee-related expense). Although we recognize substantially all of our revenue when services have been delivered, we recognize a large portion of our sales commission expense at the time of contract signature and at the time our services commence. Accordingly, we incur a portion of our sales and marketing expense prior to the recognition of the corresponding revenue. We plan to continue to invest in sales and marketing by hiring additional direct sales personnel to add new clients and increase sales to our existing clients. We also plan to expand our marketing activities in certain areas, such as attending trade shows, expanding user groups, and creating new printed materials. As a result, we expect that, in the future, sales and marketing expense will increase in absolute terms but decline over time as a percentage of revenue.

 

Research and Development Expense.  Research and development expense consists primarily of personnel-related expenses for research and development employees (including salaries, benefits, stock-based compensation, non-billable travel, lodging, and other out-of-pocket employee-related expense) and consulting fees for third-party developers. We expect that, in the future, research and development expense will increase in absolute terms but not as a percentage of revenue as new services and more mature products require incrementally less new research and development investment. For our revenue-cycle-related application development, we expense nearly all of the development costs as we are at the operational stage of the development cycle. For our clinical cycle related application development, we capitalized nearly all of our research and development costs during the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007, which capitalized costs represented approximately 13% of our total research and development expenditures in 2008 and approximately 15% in 2007. These capitalized expenditures began to amortize during the first quarter of 2007 when we began to implement our services to clients who are not part of our beta-testing program.

 

General and Administrative Expense.  General and administrative expense consists primarily of personnel-related expense for administrative employees (including salaries, benefits, stock-based compensation, non-billable travel, lodging, and other out-of-pocket employee-related expense), occupancy and other indirect costs (including building maintenance and utilities), and insurance, as well as software license fees; outside professional fees for accountants, lawyers, and consultants; and compensation for temporary employees. We expect that general and administrative expense will increase in absolute terms for the foreseeable future as we invest in infrastructure to support our growth and incur additional expense related to being a publicly traded company. Though expenses are expected to continue to rise in absolute terms, we expect general and administrative expense to decline as a percentage of overall revenues.

 

Depreciation and Amortization Expense.  Depreciation and amortization expense consists primarily of depreciation of fixed assets and amortization of capitalized software development costs, which we amortize over a two-year period from the time of release of related software code. Because our core revenue cycle application is relatively mature, we expense those costs as incurred, and, as a result, in 2008 approximately 87% of our software development expenditures were expensed rather than capitalized. In the year ended December 31, 2007, approximately 85% were expensed rather than capitalized. As we grow, we will continue to make capital investments in the infrastructure of the business, and we will continue to develop software that

we capitalize. At the same time, because we are spreading fixed costs over a larger client base, we expect related depreciation and amortization expense to decline as a percentage of revenues over time.

 

Other Income (Expense).  Interest expense consists primarily of interest costs related to our former working capital line of credit, our equipment-related term leases, our term loan and revolving loans under our credit facility, and our former subordinated term loan, offset by interest income on investments. Interest income represents earnings from our cash, cash equivalents, and investments. The loss on interest rate derivative contract represents the change in the fair market value of a derivative instrument that is not designated a hedge under FAS 133. Although this derivative has not been designated for hedge accounting, we believe that such instrument is correlated with the underlying cash flow exposure related to variability in interest rate movements on our term loan. In 2007, the loss on warrant liability represents the change in the fair value of our warrants to purchase shares of our preferred stock at the end of each reporting period. This warrant liability and associated accounting to recognize this liability at its fair value, ceased upon the completion of our initial public offering, at which time the associated liability converted to additional paid-in-capital.

 

Critical Accounting Policies

 

We prepare our financial statements in accordance with accounting principles generally accepted in the United States. The preparation of these financial statements requires us to make estimates and assumptions that affect the reported amounts of assets, liabilities, revenue, expense, and related disclosures. We base our estimates and assumptions on historical experience and on various other factors that we believe to be reasonable under the circumstances. We evaluate our estimates and assumptions on an ongoing basis. Our actual results may differ from these estimates under different assumptions or conditions.

 

We believe the critical accounting policies set forth below, among others, affect our more significant judgments and estimates used in the preparation of our financial statements.

 

Revenue Recognition and Accounts Receivable

 

We recognize revenue when all of the following conditions are satisfied:

 

 

Our arrangements do not contain general rights of return. All revenue, other than implementation revenue, is recognized when the service is performed. Relative to our business services offering that is based on the collections of amounts by our customers; we do not recognize revenue until our customers have been paid. As the implementation service is not separable from the ongoing business services, we record implementation fees as deferred revenue until the implementation service is complete, at which time we recognize revenue ratably on a monthly basis over the expected performance period.

 

Our clients typically purchase one-year contracts that renew automatically upon completion. In most cases, our clients may terminate their agreements with 90 days notice without cause. We typically retain the right to terminate client agreements in a similar timeframe. Our clients are billed monthly, in arrears, based either upon a percentage of collections posted to athenaNet, minimum fees, flat fees, or per-claim fees where applicable. Invoices are generated within the first two weeks of the month and delivered to clients primarily by email. For most of our clients, fees are then deducted from a pre-defined bank account one week after invoice receipt via an auto-debit transaction. Amounts that have been invoiced are recorded as revenue or deferred revenue, as appropriate, and are included in our accounts receivable balances. Deposits received for future services (such as implementation fees) are recorded as deferred revenue and amortized over the term of the service agreement when ongoing services commence.

We maintain allowances for doubtful accounts based on an assessment of the collectability of specific customer accounts, the aging of accounts receivable, and other economic information on both an historical and prospective basis. Customer account balances are charged against the allowance when it is probable the receivable will not be recovered. Changes in the allowance during fiscal 2008 and 2007 were not material. There is no off-balance sheet credit exposure related to customer receivable balances.

 

Software Development Costs

 

We account for software development costs under the provisions of American Institute of Certified Public Accountants Statement of Position (SOP) 98-1, Accounting for the Costs of Computer Software Developed or Obtained for Internal Use. Under SOP 98-1, costs related to the preliminary project stage of subsequent versions of athenaNet or other technology are expensed as incurred. Costs incurred in the application development stage are capitalized. Such costs are amortized over the software’s estimated economic life of two years. In 2008, approximately 87% of our software development expenditures were expensed rather than capitalized, based upon the stage of development of the software. In the year ended December 31, 2007, approximately 85% of our software development expenditures were expensed rather than capitalized.

 

Stock-Based Compensation

 

Prior to January 1, 2006, we accounted for stock-based awards to employees using the intrinsic value method as prescribed by Accounting Principles Board (APB) Opinion No. 25, Accounting for Stock Issued to Employees, and related interpretations. Under the intrinsic value method, compensation expense is measured on the date of grant as the difference between the deemed fair value of our common stock and the option exercise price, multiplied by the number of options granted. Generally, we grant stock options with exercise prices equal to or above the estimated fair value of our common stock. No compensation expense was recorded for options issued to employees prior to January 1, 2006.

 

On January 1, 2006, we adopted SFAS No. 123(R), Share-Based Payment, which requires companies to expense the grant date fair value of employee stock options and other forms of share-based awards. SFAS 123(R) addresses accounting for share-based awards, including shares issued under employee stock purchase plans, stock options, and share-based awards, with compensation expense measured using the fair value, for financial reporting purposes, and recorded over the requisite service period of the award. In accordance with SFAS 123(R), we recognize compensation expense for awards granted and awards modified, repurchased, or cancelled after the adoption date. Under SFAS 123(R), we estimate the fair value of stock options and share-based awards using the Black-Scholes option-pricing model.

 

We have recorded stock-based compensation under SFAS 123(R) using the prospective transition method and, accordingly, will continue to account for awards granted prior to the adoption date of SFAS 123(R) following the provisions of APB Opinion No. 25. Prior periods have not been restated. For awards granted after January 1, 2006, we have recognized compensation expense for awards with service conditions on a straight-line basis over the requisite service period. For the twelve months ended December 31, 2008, 2007, and 2006, we recorded $5.6 million, $1.3 million, and $0.4 million in stock-based compensation expense, respectively. As of December 31, 2008, the future expense of non-vested options of approximately $16.4 million is to be recognized through 2012.

 

The fair value of our options issued during the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007, was determined using the Black-Scholes model with the following range of assumptions:

 

Since we completed our initial public offering in September 2007, we have not had sufficient history as a publicly traded company to evaluate its volatility factor and expected term. As such, we analyzed the volatilities and expected terms of a group of peer companies to support the assumptions used in its calculations for the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007. We averaged the volatilities of the peer companies with in-the-money options, sufficient trading history and similar vesting terms to generate the assumptions detailed above. These companies include: HLTH Corporation (formerly known as Emdeon Corp.), Quality Systems, Inc., Per Se Technologies, Inc. (acquired by McKesson Corp.) and Allscripts HealthCare Solutions, Inc. (now Allscripts-Misys Healthcare Solutions, Inc.). The expected volatility for options granted during 2008 was between 48% and 54% throughout the year. The expected volatility for options granted during 2007 and 2006 was 71%. The expected life of options granted during the years ended December 31, 2008 and 2007, was determined to be 6.25 years using the “simplified” method as prescribed by SAB No. 107, Share-Based Payment. The risk-free interest rate is based on a treasury instrument whose term is consistent with the expected life of the stock options. We have not paid and do not anticipate paying cash dividends on our shares of common stock; therefore, the expected dividend yield is assumed to be zero. In addition, SFAS No. 123(R) requires companies to utilize an estimated forfeiture rate when calculating the expense for the period.

 

We believe that there is a high degree of subjectivity involved when using option-pricing models to estimate share-based compensation under SFAS 123(R). If factors change and we employ different assumptions in the application of SFAS 123(R) in future periods than those currently applied under SFAS 123(R), the compensation expense that we record in the future under SFAS 123(R) may differ significantly from what we have historically reported for future grants.

 

For example, if the volatility percentage used in calculating our SFAS 123(R) stock compensation expense had fluctuated by 10%, the total stock compensation expense to be recognized over the stock options’ four-year vesting period would have increased or decreased by approximately $2 million. If the forfeiture rate used in calculating our SFAS 123(R) stock compensation expense had fluctuated by 10%, the total stock compensation expense to be recognized over the stock options’ four-year vesting period would have decreased or increased by approximately $1.0 million.

 

Income Taxes

 

We account for income taxes under the asset and liability method, which requires the recognition of deferred tax assets and liabilities for the expected future tax consequences of events that have been included in the financial statements. Under this method, deferred tax assets and liabilities are determined based on the differences between the financial statements and the tax basis of assets and liabilities using enacted tax rates in effect for the year in which the differences are expected to reverse. The effect of a change in tax rates on deferred tax assets and liabilities is recognized in income in the period that includes the enactment date.

 

We are subject to federal and various state income taxes in the United States, and we use significant judgment and estimates in determining our provision and related deferred tax assets.

 

We record net deferred tax assets to the extent we believe these assets will more likely than not be realized. We consider whether a valuation allowance is needed on its deferred tax assets by evaluating all positive and negative evidence relative to its ability to recover deferred tax assets, including scheduled reversals of deferred tax liabilities, projected future taxable income, tax planning strategies and recent financial operations. In projecting future taxable income, we begin with historical results, adjusted for the results of discontinued operations and changes in accounting policies, if any, and incorporate assumptions including the amount of future state, federal and foreign pretax operating income, the reversal of temporary differences, and the implementation of feasible and prudent tax planning strategies, if any. These assumptions require significant judgment about the forecasts of future taxable income and are consistent with the plans and estimates we are using to manage the underlying businesses. In evaluating the objective evidence that historical results provide, we consider three years of cumulative pre tax income (loss). Prior to the year ended December 31, 2008, we had incurred losses and it was difficult to assert that deferred tax assets were recoverable with this negative evidence. During the fourth quarter of 2008, our results of operations generated a cumulative profit as measured over the current and prior two years. In addition, we have been profitable for

six consecutive quarters. Based on consideration of the weight of positive and negative evidence, including forecasted operating results, we concluded that there was sufficient positive evidence that its deferred tax assets are more likely than not recoverable as of December 31, 2008. Accordingly, the remaining valuation allowance of $16.7 million was reversed as of December 31, 2008.

 

As of December 31, 2008, we had federal and state NOLs of approximately $59,018 and $20,148, respectively, to offset future federal and state taxable income. The state NOLs begin to expire 2009 and the federal NOLs expire at various times from 2017 through 2028. During the year ended December 31, 2008, we utilized tax net operating loss carryforwards to reduce the current tax provision by $7,797.

 

We have generated NOLs from stock compensation deductions in excess of expenses recognized for financial reporting purposes (excess tax benefits). Excess tax benefits are realized when they reduce taxes payable, as determined using a “with and without” method, and are credited to additional paid-in capital and not as a reduction of income tax provision. During the year ended December 31, 2008, the Company realized excess tax benefits from state tax deductions of $526, which was credited to additional paid-in capital. As of December 31, 2008, the amount of unrecognized excess tax benefits is $10,584, which will be credited to additional paid-in capital when realized.

 

Changes in tax laws and rates could also affect recorded deferred tax assets and liabilities in the future. Management is not aware of any such changes that would have a material effect on our results of operations, cash flows or financial position.

 

We classify our deferred tax assets and liabilities as current or noncurrent based on the classification of the related asset or liability for financial reporting giving rise to the temporary difference. A deferred tax asset that is not related to an asset or liability for financial reporting, including deferred tax assets related to NOLs, is classified according to the expected reversal date. We have classified $7.8 million of federal and state net operating loss carryforwards (NOL) as current deferred tax assets at December 31, 2008.

 

In June 2006, the FASB issued Interpretation No. 48, Accounting for Uncertainty in Income Taxes, an interpretation of FASB Statement No. 109 (“FIN 48”). This statement clarifies the criteria that an individual tax position must satisfy for some or all of the benefits of that position to be recognized in a company’s financial statements. FIN 48 provides that a tax benefit from an uncertain tax position may be recognized when it is more likely than not that the position will be sustained upon examination, including resolutions of any related appeals or litigation processes, based on the technical merits. Income tax positions must meet a more-likely-than-not recognition threshold at the effective date to be recognized upon the adoption of FIN 48 and in subsequent periods. This interpretation also provides guidance on measurement, derecognition, classification, interest and penalties, accounting in interim periods, disclosure and transition. We adopted FIN 48 effective January 1, 2007.

 

On January 1, 2007, we adopted FIN 48 and reduced deferred tax assets for unrecognized tax benefits totaling $744. Because of the Company’s net loss position and full valuation allowance on net deferred tax assets, the adoption of FIN 48 had no impact on our balance sheet or accumulated deficit upon implementation.

 

Our policy is to record interest and penalties related to unrecognized tax benefits in income tax expense. As of December 31, 2008, we have no accrued interest or penalties related to uncertain tax positions. Tax returns for all years are open for audit by the Internal Revenue Service (“IRS”) until we begin utilizing its net operating losses as the IRS has the ability to adjust the amount of a net operating loss utilized on an income tax return. Our primary state jurisdiction for tax purposes is the Commonwealth of Massachusetts.

 

Goodwill

 

Goodwill is recorded as the difference, if any, between the aggregate consideration paid for an acquisition and the fair value of the net tangible and intangible assets acquired. Goodwill is not amortized but is evaluated for impairment annually or more frequently if indicators of impairment are present or changes in circumstances suggest that impairment may exist. We evaluate the carrying value of our goodwill annually in our fourth quarter based on a single reporting unit. The first step of the goodwill impairment test, used to identify

potential impairment, compares the fair value of our reporting unit with its carrying amount, including goodwill. If the fair value of our reporting unit exceeds its carrying amount, the goodwill of the reporting unit is considered not impaired. If the carrying amount of our reporting unit exceeds its fair value, the second step of the goodwill impairment test is performed to measure the amount of impairment loss, if any. The second step of the goodwill impairment test, used to measure the amount of impairment loss, compares the implied fair value of our reporting unit’s goodwill with the carrying value of that goodwill as of the date of impairment review. The implied fair value of our reporting unit goodwill is determined on the same basis as the amount of goodwill recognized in connection with a business combination. Specifically, we allocate the fair value of our reporting unit to all of the assets and liabilities of that unit (including any unrecognized intangible assets) as if the reporting unit had been acquired in a business combination as of the date of the impairment review and as if the fair value of the reporting unit was the price paid to acquire the reporting unit. The excess of the fair value of a reporting unit over the amounts assigned to its assets and liabilities is the implied fair value of goodwill. If the carrying amount of the reporting unit goodwill exceeds the implied fair value of that goodwill, an impairment loss shall be recognized in an amount equal to that excess. The test for impairment requires management to make several estimates about fair value, principally related to the determination that we operate as a single unit and therefore that fair value is based on our market capitalization. Management estimates associated with the goodwill impairment tests are considered critical due to the amount of goodwill recorded on our combined consolidated balance sheets and the judgment required in determining fair value amounts.

 

Purchased Intangible Assets

 

Other intangible assets consist of technology and customer relationships acquired in connection with a business acquisition and are amortized over their estimated useful lives. We have estimated the useful life of the technology acquired from MedicalMessaging to be five years and the customer relationships to be ten years.

Consolidated Results of Operations

 

The following table sets forth our consolidated results of operations as a percentage of total revenue for the periods shown:

 

 

Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2008 and 2007

 

 

Revenue.  Total revenue for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $139.6 million, an increase of $38.8 million, or 38%, over revenue of $100.8 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. This increase was due almost entirely to an increase in business services revenue.

 

Business Services Revenue.  Revenue from business services for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $131.9 million, an increase of $37.7 million, or 40%, over revenue of $94.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. This increase was primarily due to the growth in the number of physicians using our services. The number of physicians using our services at December 31, 2008, was 12,589, an increase of

3,166, or 34%, from 9,423 physicians at December 31, 2007. Also contributing to this increase was the growth in related collections on behalf of these physicians. Total collections generated by these providers that was posted for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $3.7 billion, an increase of $1.0 billion, or 37%, over posted collections of $2.7 billion for the year ended December 31, 2007.

 

Implementation and Other Revenue.  Revenue from implementations and other sources was $7.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2008, an increase of $1.1 million, or 16%, over revenue of $6.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. This increase was driven by new client implementations and increased professional services for our larger client base. As of December 31, 2008, the numbers of accounts live on our revenue cycle management service, athenaCollector, increased by 305 accounts since December 31, 2007. As of December 31, 2008, the numbers of accounts live on our clinical cycle management service, athenaClinicals, increased by 80 accounts since December 31, 2007. The increase in implementation and other revenue is the result of the increase in the volume of our business.

 

 

Direct Operating Costs.  Direct operating costs for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $58.8 million, an increase of $12.7 million, or 27%, over direct operating costs of $46.1 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. This increase was primarily due to an increase in the number of claims that we processed on behalf of our clients and the related expense of providing services, including transactions expense and salary and benefits expense. The amount of collections processed for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $3.7 billion, which was 37% higher than the $2.7 billion of collection processed for the year ended December 31, 2007. The increase in collections increased at a higher rate than the increase in the related direct operating expense as we benefited from economies of scale.

 

 

Selling and Marketing Expense.  Selling and marketing expense for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $22.8 million, an increase of $5.6 million, or 33%, over costs of $17.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. This increase was primarily due to increases in internal and external commissions of $1.7 million, a $1.3 million increase in stock compensation expense, an increase in salaries and benefits of $2.3 million, and an increase in marketing-related expenses of $0.3 million.

 

Research and Development Expense.  Research and development expense for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $10.6 million, an increase of $3.1 million, or 42%, over research and development expense of $7.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. This increase was primarily due to a $1.9 million increase in salaries, a $0.8 million increase in stock compensation expense, and a $0.4 million increase in consulting expense related to our athenaClinicals product.

 

General and Administrative Expense.  General and administrative expense for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $29.3 million, an increase of $9.4 million, or 47%, over general and administrative expenses of $19.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. This increase was primarily due to a $6.5 million increase in employee-related costs due to an increase in headcount, a $1.4 million increase in stock compensation expense, and a $1.5 million increase in audit-related and legal fees due to the costs of being a public company.

Depreciation and Amortization.  Depreciation and amortization expense for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $6.0 million, an increase of $0.5 million, or 8%, from depreciation and amortization of $5.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. This increase was primarily due to the addition of property and equipment during 2008.

 

Other Income (Expense).  Interest income for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $1.9 million, an increase of $0.5 million from interest income of $1.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. The increase was directly related to the higher cash and short-term investments balance during the year. Interest expense for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $0.4 million, a decrease of $3.3 million over interest expense of $3.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2007. The decrease is related to a decrease in bank debt during 2008. The loss on interest rate derivative for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $0.9 million, which was the result of the change in the fair market value of a derivative instrument that was not designated a hedge under FAS 133. Although this derivative does not qualify for hedge accounting, we believe that the instrument is closely correlated with the underlying exposure, thus managing the associated risk. The gains or losses from changes in the fair value of derivative instruments that are not accounted for as hedges are recognized in earnings. The loss on warrant liability for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $5.0 million, which was the result of the change in the fair value of the warrants prior to our initial public offering (“IPO”). This change in the fair value of the warrants is attributable to the appreciation in the fair value of our common and preferred stock during this period, as the common stock increased from $7.20 per share as of December 31, 2006, to $18.00 per share at the time of our IPO. These warrants converted to warrants to purchase shares of common stock upon the consummation of our IPO, at which time the existing liability was reclassified to additional paid-in-capital. Therefore there was no such expense in 2008. Also included in other expense for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $0.1 million in loss on disposal of assets and $0.6 million of financial advisor fees paid by shareholders. Included in other expense for the year ended December 31, 2008, was $0.2 million in gain on disposal of assets.

 

Income Tax Provision.  We recorded a benefit of $16.1 million for income taxes for the period of December 31, 2008 which included a reversal of the valuation allowance against the deferred tax assets of the Company. We consider whether a valuation allowance is needed on its deferred tax assets by evaluating all positive and negative evidence relative to its ability to recover deferred tax assets. Prior to the year ended December 31, 2008, we had incurred losses and it is difficult to assert that deferred tax assets are recoverable with this negative evidence. During the fourth quarter of 2008, our results of operations generated a cumulative profit as measured over the current and prior two years. In addition, we have been profitable for six consecutive quarters. Based on consideration of the weight of positive and negative evidence, including forecasted operating results, we concluded that there was sufficient positive evidence that its deferred tax assets are more likely than not recoverable as of December 31, 2008. Accordingly, the remaining valuation allowance was reversed as of December 31, 2008. We recorded a provision for income taxes for the year ended December 31, 2007, of less than $0.1 million, which represents income tax expense for the alternative minimum tax (“AMT”).

 

Comparison of the Years Ended December 31, 2007 and 2006

 

 

Revenue.  Total revenue for 2007 was $100.8 million, an increase of $25.0 million, or 33%, over revenue of $75.8 million for 2006. This increase was almost entirely due to an increase in business services revenue.

 

Business Services Revenue.  Revenue from business services for 2007 was $94.2 million, an increase of $23.5 million, or 33%, over revenue of $70.7 million for 2006. This increase was primarily due to the growth in the number of physicians using our services. The number of physicians using our services at December 31,

2007, was 9,423, an increase of 2,030, or 27%, over the 7,393 physicians at December 31, 2006. Also contributing to this increase was growth in related collections on behalf of these physicians. Total collections generated by these providers posted for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $2.7 billion, which was a 35% increase over $2.0 billion for the year ended December 31, 2006.

 

Implementation and Other Revenue.  Revenue from implementations and other sources was $6.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2007, an increase of $1.4 million, or 28%, over revenue of $5.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2006. This increase was driven by new client implementations and increased professional services for our larger client base. In the year ended December 31, 2007, approximately 366 new accounts were implemented, an increase of 110 accounts, or 43%, over 256 new accounts implemented in the year ended December 31, 2006. The increase in implementation and other revenue is the result of the increase in the volume of our business.

 

 

Direct Operating Expense.  Direct operating expense for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $46.1 million, an increase of $9.6 million, or 26%, over direct operating expense of $36.5 million for the year ended December 31, 2006. This increase was primarily due to an increase in the number of claims that we processed on behalf of our clients and the related expense of providing services, including transactions expense and salary and benefits expense. Additionally, beginning in the year ended December 31, 2007, we allocated expense to direct operating expense related to our launch of athenaClinicals, which was previously included with research and development. The athenaClinicals expense allocated to direct operating expense totaled approximately $2.4 million in the year ended December 31, 2007. The amount of collections processed for our clients for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $2.7 billion, which was 35% higher than the $2.0 billion of collections processed for the year ended December 31, 2006. The increase in collections increased at a higher rate than the increase in the related direct operating expense, as we benefited from economies of scale.

 

 

Selling and Marketing Expense.  Selling and marketing expense for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $17.2 million, an increase of $1.6 million, or 10%, over sales and marketing expense of $15.6 million for the year ended December 31, 2006. This increase was primarily due to increases in sales commissions of $1.4 million and an increase in salaries and benefits of $1.0 million, offset by a decrease in marketing expenses of $0.8 million.

 

Research and Development Expense.  Research and development expense for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $7.5 million, an increase of $0.6 million, or 8%, over research and development expense of $6.9 million for the year ended December 31, 2006. This increase was primarily due to a $0.6 million increase in salaries.

 

General and Administrative Expense.  General and administrative expense for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $19.9 million, an increase of $3.6 million, or 22%, over general and administrative expense of $16.3 million for the year ended December 31, 2006. This increase was primarily due to a $2.6 million increase in salaries and benefits resulting from an increase in headcount, a $0.6 million increase in stock compensation expense, and a $0.4 million increase in insurance expense.

Depreciation and Amortization.  Depreciation and amortization expense for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $5.5 million, a decrease of $0.7 million, or 11%, from depreciation and amortization expense of $6.2 million for the year ended December 31, 2006. This decrease was primarily due to the lower amortization amount relating to our capitalized software development costs, which is the result of previously capitalized costs becoming fully amortized during 2007.

 

Other Income (Expense).  Interest income for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $1.4 million, an increase of $1.0 million from interest income of $0.4 million for the year ended December 31, 2006. The increase was directly related to the higher cash balance during the year. Interest expense for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $3.7 million, an increase of $1.0 million, or 38%, over interest expense of $2.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2006. The increase is related to an increase in bank debt, a working capital line of credit, and an equipment line of credit during 2007 and penalties for the earlier repayment of debt during 2007. The loss on warrant liability for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $5.0 million, an increase of $4.3 million from $0.7 million for the year ended December 31, 2006, as a result of the change in the fair value of the warrants. This change in the fair value of the warrants is attributable to the appreciation in the fair value of our common and preferred stock during this period, as the common stock increased from $7.20 per share as of December 31, 2006, to $18.00 per share at the time of our IPO on September 19, 2007. These warrants converted to warrants to purchase shares of common stock upon the consummation of our IPO, at which time the existing liability was reclassified to additional paid-in-capital. Also included in other expense for the year ended December 31, 2007, was $0.1 million in loss on disposal of assets and $0.6 million of financial advisor fees paid by shareholders.

 

Income Tax Provision.  We recorded a provision for income taxes for the year ended December 31, 2007, of approximately $34,000, which represents income tax expense for the alternative minimum tax. We did not record a provision for income taxes for the year ended December 31, 2006, as we were in a loss position during the period.

Quarterly Results of Operations

 

The following table presents our unaudited condensed consolidated quarterly results of operations for the eight fiscal quarters ended December 31, 2008. This information is derived from our unaudited consolidated financial statements and includes all adjustments, consisting only of normal recurring adjustments, that we consider necessary for fair statement of our financial position and operating results for the quarters presented. Operating results for these periods are not necessarily indicative of the operating results for a full year. Historical results are not necessarily indicative of the results to be expected in future periods. You should read this data together with our consolidated financial statements and the related notes to these financial statements included elsewhere in this Annual Report on Form 10-K.