Charles Divita
Analyst · Goldman Sachs
Thanks, Mike. I'm pleased with our performance for the quarter with consolidated revenue and adjusted EBITDA both exceeding the midpoint of our guidance ranges and reflecting solid performance in Integrated Care and progress we're making in scaling insurance of BetterHelp. Let me start with some comments on the market environment as it shapes everything we'll discuss today and the actions we're taking to move the business forward. The U.S. market served by our Integrated Care segment had meaningfully evolved in recent years, creating both challenges and new opportunities to build upon our scale platform. We've established a market-leading position by delivering at a national scale and by expanding services over time to address episodic and longitudinal care needs, improve the health of people living with chronic conditions and to support mental health. We see our ability to provide more comprehensive care at scale, positioning us well for the opportunities ahead. One of the more significant market shifts has been with client preferences moving from subscription-based access towards visit-based arrangements and are more in line with the fee-for-service construct of the U.S. health care system. While this shift has created some near-term changes to our model, we've embraced it as an opportunity to expand our role and the impact we can have through each visit and interaction with Teladoc Health. For example, earlier this year, we significantly enhanced our flagship 24/7 care offering, broadening the conditions we can address, bringing specialist support to our treating clinicians, adding real-time prescription benefit checks and expanding our ability to connect patients to additional in-network care as needed. Multiple health plans have added the enhanced offering already, and we expect more to follow suit. And together with other virtual care services, we expect to see a moderation in the revenue headwinds we've experienced because of the migration of subscriptions to visits and to exit the year with this moving to a net tailwind. The market for chronic care programs has also evolved in recent years, including the proliferation of point solutions that add more fragmentation. Chronic disease affects more than half of American adults and remains a major challenge for patients, health plans and employers and the U.S. health care system. Clients are increasingly looking for a more comprehensive approach supporting people with chronic conditions, a shift that plays well to our strengths. Over the past several quarters, we've taken deliberate actions to strengthen our position, deepen our clinical model and drive innovation in our products and in our capabilities. And we see advancements in artificial intelligence as an important catalyst and opportunity for us to lean into these market changes. While we've been using AI and adjacent technologies for some time, we are excited about the potential to leverage it more extensively in our business and advance how we deliver outcomes and results for our clients and the people we serve. This is why we've invested over the past year in our data infrastructure to power AI through our new Pulse intelligence engine as well as enhancements to our Prism Care delivery platform used by our providers. By doing so, we are turning our extensive data and AI-driven insights into action as we engage with patients and support their needs. Combined with our deep clinical expertise, our range of services and trusted relationships with clients, we can deploy AI responsibly and effectively in a virtual native health care setting. And to bring all of this together for the market, we are actively developing new products for release later this year that leverage the full breadth of our clinical services and our AI-enabled capabilities in a comprehensive solution. We believe this new approach will further build on the strengths of our well-established platform, create clear market differentiation and support sustainable growth. I look forward to providing a further update on this product innovation initiative on our second quarter call. Mental health also represents an important market, and we see strong demand for our services given the extensive unmet need out there. Mental health conditions impact over 60 million adults in the U.S. with half of those not receiving treatment and over 1/3 of the U.S. population living in areas with a shortage of mental health professionals. Because of this, the virtual care modality has become an essential access point and our services an important avenue for people seeking help and support. Within Integrated Care alone, we generated nearly $140 million in annual revenue for mental health services in 2025 and saw further traction and growth in the first quarter of 2026. And our ability to deliver comprehensive services across virtual care, chronic conditions and mental health to support overall health is valued by our clients and strategically important to our Integrated Care business. The mental health market is also important to BetterHelp, which has built a leading global position in direct-to-consumer virtual therapy. Its high brand awareness, scaled platform and large and diverse therapist network come together to deliver an exceptional patient experience and achieve positive clinical outcomes. And having served over 6 million people since inception, BetterHelp also represents an important marketplace for mental health professionals to be matched with patients, over 90% of the time in less than 48 hours. However, with mounting pressure on BetterHelp's U.S. direct-to-consumer cash pay business, we took decisive action to enter the insurance market and move towards a more durable and balanced model. In support, we made the highly strategic acquisition of UpLift last year, securing important capabilities, talent and a baseline of insurance contracts. The integration has gone very well, and the insurance rollout is progressing ahead of our expectations. We are live in 30 states in Washington, D.C. and have credentialed and enrolled over 6,000 providers. We've also grown insurance contracted lives to over 150 million, a 30 million increase since year-end 2025. Early engagement data is also encouraging with insurance covered users averaging approximately 20% more sessions than cash-pay users in their first 90 days, suggesting benefits coverage is helping remove cost barriers. Funnel conversion is also stronger with covered users that enter insurance information during onboarding compared to those moving through a cash pay-only flow. This is particularly important given BetterHelp's large inbound demand funnel and opportunity to convert a greater share of interested users into active ones and resulting in improved customer acquisition efficiency over time. And we're beginning to see some meaningful separation in performance between markets where insurance has been active for an extended period compared to cash-only markets. For example, in states where insurance was live by the third quarter of 2025, we're seeing a nearly 800 basis point improvement in revenue performance compared to cash pay-only markets, an indication that insurance access is improving activation and helping stabilize underlying trends as markets scale. As a result of this momentum, BetterHelp's total insurance covered sessions are now running at over 14,000 per week, representing an annualized revenue run rate of over $75 million, and we now expect to exit 2026 with a run rate of $125 million or more. This further illustrates the real progress we are making in the insurance rollout and in creating a stronger position in the U.S. for BetterHelp. Markets outside the U.S. also represent an important growth opportunity for BetterHelp, contributing to solid growth in user trends and benefiting from more favorable customer acquisition costs on average. Our localized country launches in 2025 are delivering solid end market growth, and we look to target 1 to 2 new markets for launch in the second half of 2026. Finally, operational excellence remains a key area of focus across both business segments, including operating efficiency and effectiveness. We've elevated execution and operating discipline with a clear focus on our cost structure. AI is playing a role here as well as we continue to deploy new capabilities across our business. For example, within BetterHelp, new AI-assisted clinical documentation is reducing administrative burden so therapists can focus more on delivering care. Since launch, we've generated over 300,000 notes with strong therapist satisfaction and more than 2,000 therapists have used it across 30,000 sessions in our insurance workflows alone. This technology is saving about 15 minutes per session and adding up to more than 4 million minutes so far. We will continue to look for ways to leverage AI and continue to focus on our cost structure more broadly. Our strategic priorities are aimed squarely at building a stronger business, supported by our financial strength and approach to capital allocation. This includes making both organic and inorganic investments that are well aligned with our needs and market opportunities and ensuring a strong balance sheet and financial profile, which is also important to our clients. As I mentioned on the last earnings call, we intend to address our 2027 convertible notes in 2 phases to meaningfully lower our gross debt position. First, by paying down a substantial portion with available cash and securing new traditional term debt, potentially before year-end and then paying off the remainder with cash at maturity in 2027. We believe this appropriately aligns with the cash flow profile and need of the business, and we will continue to evaluate our capital with a focus on financial strength and long-term shareholder value. Now let me cover our results for the first quarter. Consolidated revenue was $614 million and adjusted EBITDA was $58 million, representing a 9.5% margin. Net loss per share was $0.36 and includes the following pretax per share amounts: amortization of intangible assets of $0.50, stock-based compensation of $0.08 and restructuring costs of $0.07 per share. Consistent with historical seasonality, free cash flow for the quarter was a net outflow of $26 million, ending with $751 million in cash and cash equivalents on the balance sheet. Net debt to trailing adjusted EBITDA was under 0.9x and 3.6x on a gross debt basis. Turning to segment results. First quarter Integrated Care revenue was $395 million, an increase of 1.5% over the prior year and came in towards the upper end of our guidance range. Acquisitions contributed approximately 170 basis points to year-over-year growth with a high single-digit increase in visit revenue, largely offset by lower subscription revenues in the quarter. International revenues again grew double digits over the prior year period, including a 30% increase from our hybrid care models that provide virtual services and physical settings. U.S. Integrated Care membership finished the quarter at 101.2 million members, above the high end of our guidance range. We retained our full year outlook, which contemplates moderation over the course of the year as health plans deal with potential changes to their underlying enrollment levels. Chronic Care program enrollment was 1.2 million at quarter end, up approximately 1% sequentially and 4% higher year-over-year, driven largely by an increased adoption of multi-condition bundles by clients seeking a more integrated and comprehensive approach. First quarter Integrated Care adjusted EBITDA was $56 million, up 12% over the prior year period and representing a 14.2% margin, slightly above the high end of our guidance range and up approximately 130 basis points from the first quarter of 2025. Strong adjusted EBITDA performance was driven by the revenue upside I mentioned earlier as well as disciplined cost management, which more than offset mix-related gross margin pressure from the shift to visit-based arrangements. BetterHelp's first quarter revenue was $218 million, 9% lower than the prior year period, reflecting continued pressure on the direct-to-consumer cash pay business. This was offset to some extent by $13 million in insurance-based revenue, which was up $6 million sequentially and at the high end of our expectations. Average paying users declined 9% from the prior year's quarter to 361,000, reflecting a mid-teens decline in the U.S., partially offset by high single-digit growth in non-U.S. markets. BetterHelp's adjusted EBITDA for the quarter was $2 million, a 0.9% margin and down from 3.2% in the prior year. Lower cash pay revenue and the timing of investments to support the stronger insurance rollout drove a lower margin result. These items were somewhat offset by 12% lower advertising and marketing expense versus first quarter 2025, an intentional move as we balance funnel activation and brand awareness to support both cash pay and insurance. Now turning to guidance. We expect 2026 consolidated revenue for the year of $2.48 billion to $2.58 billion, adjusted EBITDA of $267 million to $306 million and free cash flow of $130 million to $170 million, with the midpoint of each of these ranges unchanged from our prior outlook. We now expect full year stock-based compensation expense to be below $55 million, which would represent a decline of over 30% from 2025 and down over 70% since 2023. We project net loss per share of $1.05 to $0.75 per share. Note that our cash flow and net loss per share guidance ranges do not include any potential impact from changes in our current debt structure as our remaining convertible notes don't mature until June 2027, and we are still evaluating options to address the notes. For the second quarter, we expect consolidated revenue in the range of $597 million to $626 million and adjusted EBITDA in the range of $55 million to $67 million. For Integrated Care, we expect revenue to grow 0.8% to 3.5% with the range narrowing slightly and the midpoint unchanged. This range includes roughly 65 basis points of inorganic growth from prior acquisitions and approximately 60 basis points of benefit from FX. We expect International revenue growth in the high single digits on an organic constant currency basis and high single-digit growth in visit revenues to be largely offset by lower subscription revenue. As I mentioned earlier, we expect this dynamic to further moderate in the second half of 2026 and to exit the year being a tailwind to growth. Our full year Integrated Care adjusted EBITDA margin guidance of 15.1% to 16.1% is unchanged, which at the midpoint reflects an increase of approximately 45 basis points over 2025. Margin improvement is expected to be driven by ongoing cost savings and productivity initiatives, largely offsetting mix pressure from the subscription to visit shift. We continue to be highly focused on ensuring our underlying cost base is aligned with our needs and the opportunities ahead. We are guiding to second quarter Integrated Care revenue down 1.75% to up 1.75% year-over-year, which includes roughly 70 basis points of contribution from prior acquisitions. The sequential comparison versus the first quarter 2026 is impacted by timing factors, including client revenue that we expected to recognize in the second quarter that was recognized in the first quarter, the deferral of certain new contract implementations now expected to go live in the second half of 2026 and a reduced FX outlook. Adjusted EBITDA margin is expected to be in the range of 14.7% to 16.0% in the second quarter, representing a year-over-year increase of approximately 65 basis points at the midpoint. Looking out to the second half of the year for the Integrated Care segment, we expect growth to benefit from contract implementations and strong visit revenue growth due in part to our enhanced 24/7 care offering as well as targeted enhancements to our visit funnel conversion. In addition to those factors, adjusted EBITDA is expected to benefit from continued execution on cost savings and productivity initiatives. Moving to BetterHelp. We are narrowing our 2026 revenue guidance range to down 6.5% to down 1.0% versus 2025, with the midpoint unchanged. This now contemplates full year insurance revenue in the range of $90 million to $105 million, a $15 million increase from our prior expectation and an anticipated exit run rate of at least $125 million in the fourth quarter. Cash pay revenue reflects a continued challenging consumer backdrop, together with the impact of continued scaling of insurance and disciplined advertising and marketing spending. Our guidance for adjusted EBITDA margin of 3.0% to 4.6% is unchanged versus our prior range. This reflects mix impacts and investments to support the scaling of insurance, partially offset by the lower level of expected ad spending. For the second quarter, we are guiding to BetterHelp revenue down 11.75% to down 5.25%. At the midpoint, this reflects modest sequential growth, an early milestone reflecting progress towards stabilizing the business. This contemplates insurance revenue in the range of $18 million to $22 million in the quarter, up over 50% sequentially at the midpoint. We expect an adjusted EBITDA margin of minus 0.5% to plus 1.5%, down on a year-over-year basis due to lower cash pay revenue, mix impacts on gross margin and continued investments to scale insurance, partially offset by lower ad spend. Looking at the balance of the year for BetterHelp, we expect continued sequential revenue growth in the third and fourth quarter, driven by higher insurance revenues and growth in non-U.S. markets and similar seasonality with respect to adjusted EBITDA with the fourth quarter being the highest due to lower ad spend as a result of holiday ad pricing dynamics. In closing, we are pleased with our first quarter performance and remain on track with our outlook. We are confident in the actions we are taking and encouraged by the progress across our key priorities. Our team remains highly focused on disciplined execution, and we will continue to prioritize actions to drive long-term shareholder value. With that, let's open it up for questions. Operator?