Accolade, Inc. (NASDAQ:ACCD) Q2 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Shantanu Nundy: Yes. Absolutely, Raj. And Jailendra, always good to hear from you and it’s a fantastic question. Yes, I think the key that we’re hearing from employers and I think for me as a practicing physician makes sense clinically, is that we want to use the demand for GLP-1 to really create a much more comprehensive evaluation and a much more comprehensive plan for these members, right. I think too many actors in the healthcare system are sort of taking a patient who is interested in a GLP-1 and saying, okay, well, let me just prescribe that for you. And I think what we’re able to do is, we have nutritionists on our staff. We are able to — we have mental health therapists, so some of these folks, their underlying core issue is actually not related to a metabolic issue, but much more related to their mental health.

And we have people like we alluded to in the opening remarks, who are actually just interested in addressing obesity and they’re not aware of non-pharmacologic means like reversal of diabetes. And so I think our ability to be able to take them that moment of people’s interest and sort of what’s become a fad, really use that as a way to open up the much more longitudinal relationship and then have a very broad set of clinical tools and interventions at our disposal, I think is ultimately serving what members want and serving that — the employer’s interest in managing costs and improving outcomes.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Jared Haase from William Blair. Your line is open.

Jared Haase: Yes. Good afternoon, and thanks for taking the questions. This is Jared Haase on for Ryan Daniels. A two-part question here and just sticking with the demand environment favorability here, I’m curious if there has been any changes in terms of sort of the themes that are driving that environment or is it still largely focused on cost savings? Just especially when we think about the expected price increases coming out next year? And then, related to that, as we think about sort of your ability to communicate ROI around cost savings. So, is there anything that’s kind of meaningfully changed in terms of how you actually communicate that with clients? Do you have any additional sort of tools in the tool bag, so to speak, to really showcase that to prospects? Thanks.

Rajeev Singh: Thanks, Jared. As it relates to the first question, increasing trend line is always an issue, but also true, and it’s been — is increasingly true post the 2020 pandemic and shutdown, is that healthcare is becoming increasingly complex. And so while costs are always a driver even the four 2023, 2024 in their forecast have increased the trend line, the increasing fragmentation associated with increased point solution, fragmentation associated with the complexity of healthcare and the growth of third-party solutions that create that fragmentation is another real driver and that is a driver that points directly to solutions like ours that act as an umbrella to the healthcare system, paper over the fragmentation using tools like our advocacy teams or by physicians.

And so I think it’s a combination of both of those things that’s really driving the demand for our services and perhaps any mismatch between the demand you might be hearing about for services that are more point solution-oriented or in other categories. As it relates to your second question, we are consistently showing our customers our value proposition as it relates to the interventions and the engagements that we’re driving. Let’s start there, how much of their population are we engaging, the interventions that we drive on their behalf, leading to the claims savings that actually we derive on their behalf as well. And so that’s been very consistent over the years and our performance has been extraordinarily consistent as well.

Operator: Thank you. One moment for our next question. Our next question will come from the line of Glen Santangelo from Jefferies. Your line is open.

Glen Santangelo: Thanks for taking my question. Hey, Steve, I want to follow up with you on a couple of financial questions. When we look at your long-term guidance that you provided, that 5-year look out to fiscal ’29, I think the assumption was, right, you’re assuming 20% compounded annual revenue growth getting to a 10% to 15% margin in that year. Should we assume that the progression to get there will be somewhat linear and is it also a fair assumption to assume that your cash flow will somewhat equate to your adjusted EBITDA similar to maybe how it’s trended this year? And I guess the reason I’m asking, right, is because I think as you mentioned in your prepared remarks, you said the converts are only 2.5 years away into 2026 and basically, the amount of converts are almost exactly equal with the cash that you have.

And those converts are trading somewhere in the low-80’s and so I’m kind of curious as to what the plan is, and how we think about profitability and cash generation in the next kind of couple of years to prepare to basically refinance or do something with those converts? Sorry, I had lot of questions in there. My bad. I’ll stop…