Practice Fusion Cuts 25% of Staff

Following on our post a few weeks ago about the potential Practice Fusion IPO, news just came out that EHR vendor, Practice Fusion, has now cut its staff by 25%. The Techcrunch report says that the cuts were across the board and affected roughly 74 people. Many are suggesting that the two reports are related since cutting staff is a great way to improve your profit numbers before an anticipated IPO.

While I think the IPO could be in mind, I think there are likely some other trends at play too. While Techcrunch notes that it’s a down market for many IT companies, I think it’s fair to say that many EHR vendors have felt the pinch of late. I wrote a year or so ago that the golden era of government incentivized EHR sales was over and we’re entering a much different market. So, it shouldn’t be a surprise that an EHR vendor might go through some cuts as the false market created by meaningful use disappears. I won’t be surprised to see more layoffs from other EHR vendors. Especially ambulatory EHR vendors like Practice Fusion.

No doubt another factor at play is that Tom Langan replaced Ryan Howard as CEO back in August. It’s very common for a new CEO to go through a round of layoffs after taking over a business. Doing so is hard for the previous CEO who’s so connected to the staff. Not that layoffs are ever easy, but it’s much easier for a new CEO to layoff people in order to make the organization more efficient. That’s particularly true when the previous CEO was the original CEO and Founder of the company.

The cynical observer could also argue that Practice Fusion needed to do these layoffs in order to slow their burn rate since they aren’t in a position to raise more capital. You’d think the $150 million they already raised would give them plenty of run way. However, you’d be surprised how quickly that disappears with that many staff on payroll (Not to mention rents in San Francisco). I personally don’t think this is a case of Practice Fusion cutting staff because they can’t go and raise money. However, it could be Practice Fusion cutting its burn rate so that they have some flexibility on when they go public without having to raise more money.

All of this said, 74 people lost their jobs at an EHR vendor. That’s never fun for anyone involved. At least they’ll likely have plenty of job opportunities in silicon valley. Unless that bubble pops like some are suggesting. It will be interesting to see how many now former Practice Fusion employees search for another job in health care IT.

About the author

John Lynn

John Lynn is the Founder of HealthcareScene.com, a network of leading Healthcare IT resources. The flagship blog, Healthcare IT Today, contains over 13,000 articles with over half of the articles written by John. These EMR and Healthcare IT related articles have been viewed over 20 million times.

John manages Healthcare IT Central, the leading career Health IT job board. He also organizes the first of its kind conference and community focused on healthcare marketing, Healthcare and IT Marketing Conference, and a healthcare IT conference, EXPO.health, focused on practical healthcare IT innovation. John is an advisor to multiple healthcare IT companies. John is highly involved in social media, and in addition to his blogs can be found on Twitter: @techguy.

   

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