What is Waystar and why is its stock performing so well? – Deseret News

As of mid-morning on Friday, Utah-based health care payment innovator Waystar's stock was trading for about $32.50 per share on the NASDAQ exchange, pricing that represents a jump of over 56% since the company entered the public markets back in June on the back of an IPO that raised nearly $1 billion.

In a Thursday interview with the Deseret News, just a day after Waystar released a glowing third quarter earnings report , company CEO Matt Hawkins said he believes Waystar's value arc is one that reflects its success in lifting up an area of the U.S. health care industry that's been mired in out-of-date and inefficient processes.

"We feel like we purpose-built Waystar for this time in the U.S," Hawkins said. "Health care is an industry spending over $4 trillion each year, a massive part of our economy. Within that, providers are experiencing extreme inefficiencies and administrative burdens interacting with insurance companies and getting reimbursements, and with patients, who are bearing more of their expenses out of pocket than ever."

Waystar shares, trading under the WAY ticker symbol, were already up nearly 40% ahead of its third-quarter earnings check-in but saw an additional bump after the report detailed revenues of $240 million over the period, up 22% year-over-year and following second quarter growth of 20%. The company also grew its large client group, those generating over $100,000 in revenue, by 14% over the same period last year.

Hawkins said Waystar mediates transactions between providers, insurers and patients and is designed to reduce errors, optimize efficiencies and alleviate some of the transactional stresses that face patients, like providing accurate, early estimates for out-of-pocket expenses, a critical component in a U.S. health insurance system that is increasingly utilizing high-deductible programs.

"Patients themselves feel the burden and they want modernization," Hawkins told the Deseret News in June following the company's IPO. "Many patients are now participating in high-deduction insurance programs to find affordability. As they pay more and more out-of-pocket expenses, we bring humanity to the process, leveraging modern, cloud-based software and the power of artificial intelligence to streamline the experience."

Waystar was launched following the merger of two other payment companies, Navicure and ZirMed, in 2017 and opened a co-headquarters in Lehi in 2020 after qualifying for a Utah Governor's Office of Economic Development (now known as the Governor's Office of Economic Opportunity) post-performance tax incentive package worth about $400,000 over seven years.

The company's cloud-based platform leverages machine learning and artificial intelligence engines to optimize its processes and Hawkins noted on Thursday that Waystar is working with Alphabet's Google Cloud division to release new generative AI tools in the coming year.

Waystar reports it is providing services for over 30,000 clients, representing 1 million distinct providers and processing 5 billion annual healthcare payment transactions.

Waystar operates additional offices in Louisville and Atlanta but Hawkins, a Utah native, said the Beehive State has "been a great place to do business."