In a quarter where the market preferred flashy AI tickers to unglamorous healthcare plumbing, P3 Health Partners (PIII) and Amwell (AMWL) quietly reported results that suggest the real work in healthcare is happening far from meme stocks and momentum screens. Both companies are digging into the unsexy—but increasingly unavoidable—task of making care cheaper, more coordinated and less dependent on waiting rooms. If Wall Street were a hospital, these two would be in operations, not marketing.
P3 is trying to prove that value-based primary care can make money without sending patients or payers into cardiac arrest, while Amwell is attempting to turn pandemic-era telehealth familiarity into a durable software and services franchise. The numbers still have more red ink than a first-year med student’s anatomy exam, but the direction of travel is starting to matter almost as much as the destination.
P3 Health Partners: Fixing the Economics of Seniors’ Care
P3 Health Partners, a physician-led population health company focused on seniors in risk-based arrangements, reported that first-quarter revenue landed in the mid-hundreds of millions, modestly down from the prior-year period as the company rebalanced membership and contracts. Average at-risk membership hovered around the mid-100,000s, but management has been emphasizing disciplined growth over brute-force enrollment after prior stumbles on medical cost trends.
Medical margin compressed sharply versus last year, reflecting a sizeable negative impact from prior-period claims tied to a single payer, the actuarial equivalent of finding out last year’s flu was more expensive than you thought. EBITDA and net income remained negative, but the company reiterated its full-year revenue guidance in the roughly mid–single-digit billions range, signaling that, at least for now, the business model still passes the going‑concern sniff test.
Cleaning Up the Claims Closet
The most telling part of P3’s quarter was not the top-line dip but the willingness to flush through legacy claims and reset expectations, an unpleasant rite of passage for many risk-bearing primary care platforms. The hit from late-arriving claims tied to a single payer distorted medical margin and per-member-per-month metrics, but it also suggests management is opting to clean the closet rather than keep the door politely shut until the next CFO arrives.
Investors who follow the value-based care cohort have seen this movie before: rapid growth, then a reality check as claims catch up, followed by a slower, more rules-based phase focused on coding accuracy, network management and contract pruning. P3 now appears to be in that middle chapter, where the story is less about explosive membership and more about whether the company can convert scale into repeatable, predictable medical margin without constant “one-time” adjustments. On Friday, P3’s shares are clicking rapidly trying forth of $11 ashore up over 170% on the day.
Amwell: From Telehealth Darling to Software Grinder
Amwell (AMWL), the telehealth and virtual care specialist, recently reported first-quarter revenue of roughly the high‑$60 million range, up about low double digits year over year, with subscription software revenue growing at roughly triple that pace. Gross margin came in the low‑to‑mid‑50% area, underscoring that software and platform revenue continues to tilt the mix toward higher-margin business, even as services and visit volumes remain part of the story.
Net loss narrowed meaningfully versus the prior year, and adjusted EBITDA showed a sharp improvement, shifting from a substantial negative in last year’s first quarter to a still‑negative but far more manageable level this year. The company also highlighted a sizeable cash and marketable securities balance north of $200 million and a current market cap valuation of approximately of $125M , giving it time to keep iterating on the platform even if the equity market occasionally forgets that building a healthcare stack is more complicated than launching yet another social app.
Telehealth Grows Up
What distinguishes this phase of Amwell’s journey is the pivot from being a “video visit” company to becoming something closer to an infrastructure layer for health systems and payers. Subscription software revenue, now a growing share of the mix, reflects deployments of Amwell’s digital platform as a core part of clients’ virtual and hybrid care strategies rather than a bolt‑on novelty for nights and weekends.
The market’s reaction, however, was less celebratory than the income statement might suggest, however the shares have risen approximately 52% YTD to date, so investors are taking some notice.
Different Models, Same Macro Problem
On the surface, P3 and Amwell sit in different corners of the healthcare arena: one wrestles with actuarial risk and senior populations, the other orchestrates virtual encounters and software subscriptions. Underneath, both are facing the same stubborn reality: the United States has an expensive, capacity-constrained health system that desperately needs better coordination, smarter incentives and lighter digital plumbing.
P3’s job is to make sure seniors get the right care at the right time so payers don’t overpay for avoidable hospital stays, while Amwell’s task is to make sure those interactions can happen without everyone taking a half‑day off work and driving to a waiting room. Neither mandate is easy, and neither lends itself to overnight turnarounds, but both are squarely aligned with long-term policy and payer trends favoring value, access and efficiency.
The Market’s Patience Test
For investors, the tension is between narrative and patience. P3 still has to prove it can convert scale into durable profitability, particularly after absorbing prior-period claim shocks that eroded confidence in its forecasting and contracting discipline. Amwell, meanwhile, has to demonstrate that its pivot toward software and platform economics can eventually overwhelm the drag of legacy costs and the competitive noise in digital health.
Both companies have credible strategic rationales and improving, though imperfect, financial trajectories, but the market has developed a low tolerance for multi-year turnarounds in healthcare services and tech. In an environment where AI chipmakers print margins that would make a hospital CFO blush, P3 and Amwell are asking investors to value the slow compounding of operational discipline and contract wins—a harder sell, but arguably closer to how real healthcare value is created.
Why This Still Matters
If either P3 or Amwell cracks its particular code, the implications extend beyond their tickers. Scaling sustainable, risk-based primary care for seniors would provide a roadmap for a system under demographic pressure, while a robust virtual care platform could unlock capacity, reduce friction and make accessing care feel less like a part‑time job. For a healthcare system frequently described as “unsustainable” in PowerPoint decks, those are not trivial aspirations.
In the meantime, the story remains one of incremental progress, occasionally masked by messy quarters and market volatility. For investors willing to read past the headline losses and short‑term guidance jitters, P3 and Amwell offer a reminder that some of the most important work in healthcare happens off the front page, in the slow, slightly unglamorous grind of making the system work a bit better than it did last year.
The Sources
- P3 Health Partners Announces First Quarter 2025 Results – Yahoo Finance
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/p3-health-partners-announces-first-201800878.htmlfinance.yahoo - P3 Health Partners Announces First Quarter 2025 Results – Investor Relations Press Release
https://ir.p3hp.org/news-events/press-releases/detail/124/p3-health-partners-announces-first-quarter-2025-resultsp3hp - Financial Results – P3 Health Partners Investor Relations
https://ir.p3hp.org/financial-information/financial-resultsp3hp - P3 Health Partners Reports Q1 2025 Losses Amid Revenue Decline and Strategic Challenges – StockInvest.us
https://stockinvest.us/digest/p3-health-partners-reports-q1-2025-losses-amid-revenue-decline-and-strategic-challengesstockinvest - P3 Health Partners Announces First Quarter 2026 Results – Business Wire
https://www.businesswire.com/news/home/20260514491279/en/P3-Health-Partners-Announces-First-Quarter-2026-Resultsbusinesswire - P3 Health Partners Q1 2025 Revenue Falls Short – Investing.com (Earnings Call Transcript)
https://www.investing.com/news/transcripts/earnings-call-transcript-p3-health-partners-q1-2025-revenue-falls-short-93CH-4049342investing - Amwell Announces Results for First Quarter 2025 – FirstWord HealthTech
https://firstwordhealthtech.com/story/5956202firstwordhealthtech - American Well Corp (AMWL) Q1 2025 Earnings Call – Yahoo Finance Transcript
https://finance.yahoo.com/news/american-well-corp-amwl-q1-072041071.htmlfinance.yahoo - Earnings Call Transcript: Amwell’s Q1 2025 Sees Revenue Growth Despite Stock Dip – Investing.com
https://www.investing.com/news/transcripts/earnings-call-transcript-amwells-q1-2025-sees-revenue-growth-despite-stock-dip-93CH-4investing - The Wall Street Journal – Finance and Markets Section (for tone and macro context)
https://www.wsj.com/financewsj
