Last week, while rumors were flying about PayPal Holdings maybe acquiring Pinterest, some Fool.com contributors had a discussion about other possible mergers they would like to see. Taylor Carmichael nominated Doximity (DOCS -0.85%) and OptimizeRx (OPRX -1.65%) as two companies that would mesh well together in the telehealth space.
This episode of "The 5" was recorded on Oct. 21.
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Taylor Carmichael: I like the telehealth space, I'm a huge fan of telehealth in general. I think there's going to be a big transition for our society because the internet is faster, quicker, cheaper. I think more and more healthcare is going to shift online and more of this is transforming healthcare. The internet's been around for 20 years, 25 years, but it's still making these changes.
Two companies I really love in the telehealth space, one of them is Doximity, just came public this year. DOCS is their ticker. Doximity is basically the Facebook of healthcare, the LinkedIn of healthcare. Eighty percent of doctors are on the Doximity platform, 90% of med students are on the Doximity platform. It is a huge networking site for healthcare, for doctors, and they've got three businesses that they run from their website. One is the LinkedIn for people in healthcare looking for jobs, that networking thing. You don't go to Facebook and you don't go to LinkedIn, you go to Doximity because that's where they all are. The other one they do is they do telehealth, so they compete with Teladoc and they actually did a lot more telehealth visits than (Teladoc) over the last year. That's actually why I got into the stock because I was just blown away.
They rolled out Dialer, it's called Dialer. They rolled it out at the beginning of the COVID pandemic. The doctors on their platform just love Dialer because it allowed them to do telehealth through that network with their actual patients. It protected them, protected their privacy so the patients couldn't call them in the middle of the night or anything. That was the other one. Then of course, the third business is having that Facebook-type business where pharmaceutical companies and other people can reach doctors and other healthcare professionals. The advertising business, monetizing all those medical eyeballs. That's a big part of Doximity's plan.
OptimizeRX is another much smaller company in the telehealth space, which I own both of these to give you just a warning, I guess, about my own bias. But I love both of these stocks. Optimize is a lot smaller, but they're focused in a different area that Doximity is not. OptimizeRX is focused on electronic health records. Electronic health records are those things your doctor's looking at when he's looking at his iPad. All your health records are going to be online pretty much, but there is no Microsoft in this area. There are like 500 or 600 software providers or a thousand. There's just a ton of little ones. OptimizeRX is putting together an entire network. They put it together. I think it's like 60% or 70% of doctors is their reach in that electronic health network. The idea is maybe to give a little link to a Harvard study when the doctor is looking at his notes about this new drugs so that the pharmaceutical companies can reach a doctor in the course of this workflow without interrupting his workflow and bring new -- because doctors always have to get update on new things, new studies, new drugs, new stuff. Optimize is a specialist at that. And I thought, wow, these two companies would really fit into the Doximity wheelhouse because it's all about connection, and healthcare connection, and reaching doctors. That would be my suggestion.
But I agree with you, I don't know if anybody listens to me, [laughs] but both stocks have done actually really well. In fact, OptimizeRx has done better. I think it's about doubled this year. They're still small, I think it's a billion (market cap). It's a tiny company. Doximity is a lot bigger, but they might be a good combo.
Jason Hall: It's interesting because it's one of those spaces that there are just dozens and dozens of companies that do these things. The potential for consolidation is enormous in that whole space. That's an interesting mix there, interesting potential mini-powerhouse, Taylor.
