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Healthstream Inc Q3 FY2025 Earnings Call

Healthstream Inc (HSTM)

Earnings Call FY2025 Q3 Call date: 2025-11-03 Concluded

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Operator

Good morning, and welcome to HealthStream's Third Quarter 2025 Earnings Conference Call. At this time, I would like to inform you that this conference is being recorded. I will now turn the conference over to Mollie Condra, Head of Investor Relations and Communications. Please go ahead, Ms. Condra.

Mollie Condra Head of Investor Relations

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you for joining us today to discuss our third quarter 2025 results. Also on the conference call with me today is Robert A. Frist, Jr., CEO and Chair of HealthStream; and Scotty Roberts, CFO and Senior Vice President of Finance and Accounting. I would also like to remind you that this conference call may contain forward-looking statements regarding future events and the future performance of HealthStream that could involve risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from those projected in the forward-looking statements. Information concerning these risks and other factors that could cause the results to differ materially from those forward-looking statements are contained in the company's filings with the SEC, including Forms 10-K, 10-Q and our earnings release. Additionally, we may reference measures such as adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. A table providing supplemental information on adjusted EBITDA and reconciling to net income attributable to HealthStream is included in the earnings release that we issued yesterday and we may refer to in this call. So with that start, I'll now turn the call over to CEO, Bobby Frist.

Speaker 2

Good morning. Thank you, Mollie. Welcome to our third quarter 2025 earnings call. It's always good to start a quarter off with this. In the third quarter, we achieved record quarterly revenues. They were up 4.6% from the third quarter of last year. Operating income was also up 16.5%, while net income was up 6.3% and adjusted EBITDA was up 7.9%, all over the same quarter last year. Now with the first 3 quarters behind us, we updated our financial guidance for the full year 2025 by keeping the same midpoints as indicated in previous guidance while narrowing the range for each of the financial metrics. Later in the call, I'll provide some exciting developments in each of our learning, credentialing and scheduling enterprise application suites, but stay tuned because I'm also going to describe our career networks, which are an emerging part of our business that we're really excited about. First, I want to highlight our recent acquisition of Virsys12, which closed on October 8. Virsys12 is a health care technology company that offers payers and health plans an innovative provider data management suite for onboarding, credentialing and network management. Right from the start, Virsys12 strengthens and expands HealthStream's entry into the payer and health plan space, which we entered around 15 months ago with the launch of Network by HealthStream. Over that time, we have seen strong demand in the payer market for a dynamic provider data management solution, and we've also identified the need to expand HealthStream's payer-related expertise to better address this market. Not only does Virsys12 provide us with an excellent software solution and an expanded customer footprint, combined with our Network product, we now have over 25 active accounts, and it also brings world-class payer market expertise to HealthStream's leadership team. We're excited both by the quality of the Virsys12 solution and the quality of the expanded knowledge of leadership HealthStream has gained through this acquisition. We believe those things together position us well for success in this newly declared, about 15 months ago, market. Before we go further in the call, I want to briefly summarize for those that are new to the business the business for the benefit of those that are hearing it for the first time. First and foremost, HealthStream is a health care technology company dedicated to developing, credentialing and scheduling the health care workforce through SaaS-based enterprise-class solutions, each of which are becoming more valuable because of the interoperability they are achieving through our hStream technology platform. The company holds 20 patents for its innovative products and we've been awarded over 40 Brandon Hall awards. Historically, we sell our solutions on a subscription basis under contracts that average 3 to 5 years in length, which makes our revenues recurring and predictable. In fact, 96% of our revenues are subscription-based. Through our new career networks, which we've coined that phrase, we have started to open our sales channels directly to health care professionals and nursing students across the continuum of health care training. We are profitable. We have no interest-bearing debt, and we report a strong cash balance of $92.6 million at the end of the third quarter of 2025. We are solely focused on health care, and more specifically, we're focused on the health care workforce and those preparing to enter it. The 12.6 million health care professionals and nursing students in the United States comprise the core total addressable market and target audience for our SaaS-based enterprise class solutions. At this time, I want to turn the call over to Scotty Roberts, our CFO, for a more detailed look at the financial performance, and then we'll circle back and do some business updates. Scotty, it's all yours.

Speaker 3

All right. Thanks, Bobby, and good morning. Now let's go over the financial results for the third quarter. Unless otherwise noted, the comparisons will be against the same period of last year. Our revenues were a record high of $76.5 million, which is up 4.6%. Operating income was $7.6 million, which is up 16.5%. Net income was $6.1 million, up 6.3%. EPS was $0.20 per share, up from $0.19 per share, and adjusted EBITDA was also a new record high, coming in at $19.1 million, and was up 7.9%. Revenues increased by $3.4 million or 4.6% and were $76.5 million compared to $73.1 million in last year's third quarter. Revenues from subscription products were up $4 million or 5.7%, while professional service revenues were down $0.6 million or 18.6%. Our subscription revenue growth was supported by continued strong performance from our core solutions with CredentialStream growing by 23%, ShiftWizard growing by 29% and Competency Suite growing by 18%. While a portion of the strong revenue growth in CredentialStream and ShiftWizard are associated with conversions from our legacy credentialing and scheduling applications, revenues from these legacy applications declined by $1.7 million compared to last year. Excluding the impact of the legacy products from the core business, the core business grew by 8%. Our remaining performance obligations were $621 million as of the end of the third quarter compared to $549 million for the same period of last year. We expect approximately 39% of the remaining performance obligations will be converted to revenue over the next 12 months and that 67% will be converted over the next 24 months. Gross margin was 65.3% compared to 66.5% in the prior year quarter, and gross margin was impacted by an increase in our cloud hosting costs and software licensing costs, primarily for the CredentialStream application and the hStream platform. Operating expenses, excluding cost of revenues, increased by 0.6%. Product development expenses were flat compared to last year. Sales and marketing were up 5.6% and were primarily from additions to staffing. Depreciation and amortization was up 7.4%, primarily from capitalized software amortization, and general and administrative was down 13.3%, primarily due to lower rent resulting from the sublease of a portion of our Nashville office space and also lower stock-based compensation expense. Our net income improved to $6.1 million and was up 6.3% over last year. And finally, adjusted EBITDA came in at $19.1 million, which was up 7.9%, and adjusted EBITDA margin was 25% compared to 24.2% last year. And moving on to the balance sheet. We ended the quarter with cash and investment balances of $92.6 million compared to $90.6 million last quarter. And during the third quarter, we deployed $7.5 million for capital expenditures. We paid $0.9 million to shareholders through our dividend program, and we repurchased $6.9 million of our common stock under the share repurchase program that we announced in May. Our days sales outstanding improved to a record low of 33 days compared to 37 days last year, and this improvement resulted from more timely customer payments compared to the prior year. On a year-to-date basis, cash flows from operations were $50.1 million, up from $46.5 million in the prior year, an increase of 7.8%. On a year-to-date basis, free cash flow was down about $0.5 million and came in at $24.7 million compared to $25.2 million last year, and that reduction is primarily due to a $4.1 million increase in payments for capital expenditures. Ending the quarter with $92.6 million of cash and investments, free cash flow, and no debt, we are well positioned to deploy capital to improve shareholder value. As a reminder, we maintain a disciplined approach to capital allocation and how we prioritize our use of capital. Our utmost priority is making organic investments back into the business, which is evident by our annual capital expenditure and R&D plans. The second is pursuing acquisition opportunities, which we have a long track record of executing. The third is returning a portion of the profits back to shareholders in the form of cash dividends. And the fourth priority is that our Board may authorize share repurchase programs, which they did earlier this year. In fact, in May, our Board of Directors authorized a $25 million share repurchase program. And during the third quarter, we repurchased $6.9 million of our common stock, completing the full $25 million program. In regard to M&A investments, on October 8, we announced the acquisition of Virsys12 LLC, a health care technology company, which Bobby described earlier. The consideration paid for Virsys12 consisted of $11.2 million in cash, which takes into effect customary purchase price adjustments. It's also subject to a post-closing working capital adjustment. Up to an additional $4 million of cash consideration may be paid over a 3-year period following the closing, which is contingent upon the achievement of certain financial targets. In addition, we maintain an active M&A pipeline and continue to evaluate additional opportunities that align with our platform and product strategy. Now let's go over our financial outlook, which has been updated as we enter the final quarter of the year. We expect consolidated revenues to range between $299.5 million and $301.5 million. We expect net income to range between $20.3 million and $21.5 million. We expect adjusted EBITDA to range between $69.5 million and $71.5 million, and we expect capital expenditures to range between $33 million and $34 million. This guidance also includes the recent Virsys12 acquisition but does not include assumptions for any additional acquisitions that we may complete during the remainder of the year. Our revenue estimate includes contributions of approximately $900,000 from the Virsys12 acquisition, offset by a $3 million expected decline in our legacy credentialing and scheduling products. And finally, before I wrap up, in respect to our dividend program, yesterday, our Board of Directors declared a quarterly cash dividend of $0.031 per share, which will be paid on November 28 to holders of record as of November 17. Now I'll stop here and turn the call back over to you, Bobby. Thanks.

Speaker 2

Thank you, Scotty. As we enter this final segment, I plan to approach things a bit differently today. Normally, I follow Scotty's financial overview with updates on our learning, credentialing, and scheduling application suites, which we will still cover. However, I want to first clarify and redefine some work we're undertaking, which we've termed career networks. I want to explain what this entails and the developments happening in this area, as it is genuinely exciting. So, let's dive into the concept of these emerging career networks. This new area is exciting for us, and I believe you'll share my enthusiasm after this update. To provide a quick framework, our career networks offer value directly to the individuals providing care, contrasting with our enterprise application suites, which primarily benefit healthcare organizations and, subsequently, the individuals within them. One set of solutions is tailored for students and professionals—that's our career networks—while the other is designed for businesses, our enterprise application suites. Addressing the intricate challenges within today's healthcare workforce necessitates both types of solutions. Furthermore, to create significant change, connecting these two in innovative and impactful ways is essential, which we are accomplishing through our unified platform, hStream. As many of you know, HealthStream has been steadily developing comprehensive solutions dedicated to the ongoing growth of individual clinicians, which we now refer to as our career networks. Notable examples include our myClinicalExchange network and NurseGrid solutions, empowering individuals to cultivate, monitor, and enhance their professional identities, skills portfolios, and careers over time. This network consists of over 250,000 clinical students using myClinicalExchange to prepare for careers in healthcare and more than 660,000 nurses utilizing NurseGrid to manage and develop their professional lives. myClinicalExchange simplifies the process of clinical rotations for emerging clinicians, assisting them in matching and scheduling the rotations necessary for their graduation and licensure. These rotations not only provide guided experiential learning across nursing, allied health, and medical fields but also expose students to varied care environments and career paths within their training organizations. NurseGrid, which ranks as the top app for nurses, boasts over 660,000 monthly active users and over 3 million social connections, along with a 4.9-star rating from 150,000 reviews in the Apple App Store. You might consider NurseGrid a social network. Some might even call it the LinkedIn for nurses in healthcare. It serves as a platform for nurses to connect with coworkers, coordinate their work and personal schedules. A noteworthy aspect is that they use it to manage both their personal and work calendars. Users can also maintain a career portfolio, earn continuing education credits, and, similar to LinkedIn, discover opportunities for career advancement, share career updates, and explore job openings tailored to their specialties and locations. This feature was introduced just in the last two months. Now, I want to illustrate how our hStream platform connects our career networks with our enterprise software application suites, enhancing the value of both. When a clinical student or a nurse logs into myClinicalExchange or NurseGrid, they either log in with or create an hStream ID. This unique identifier is essential for HealthStream's platform-level identity management, linking users to applications and organizing their learning data throughout their career trajectories. So far, users in our career networks have created 391,000 hStream IDs, with around 6,000 new IDs added weekly. A significant illustration of the hStream ID capabilities occurred last month when we allowed users to seamlessly add their verified credentials from the HealthStream Learning Center, our enterprise-class learning management system, directly into their portfolios within NurseGrid. This integration is a substantial advancement in empowering healthcare professionals to manage and present their qualifications effectively. It exemplifies our hStream platform linking the career network valued by healthcare professionals to the enterprise application suite favored by healthcare organizations. Next, let's shift our focus to the enterprise application suites, which form the groundwork for our identity and future direction. We'll highlight the third quarter's key points, beginning with our learning application suite—the HealthStream Learning Center. This is our flagship product, and it remains the preferred choice in the market. It was recognized as the best software application across the entire healthcare industry by G2 at the beginning of 2025. The HealthStream Learning Center saw a growth of approximately 7% in the third quarter compared to the same period last year. On the final day of the quarter, September 30, we recorded a milestone number of course and activity completions achieved by our clients, totaling 586,307 on that single day alone. This achievement speaks to our teams' dedication to providing reliable, effective, and scalable solutions for our customers. Notably, when the HealthStream Learning Center is due for renewal, many customers opt to include additional new products in their renewals, leading to increased revenue from those accounts. In the third quarter, for instance, Jefferson Health added CredentialStream, another enterprise-class application, to their already contracted suite with HealthStream. Similarly, Premier Health chose to integrate the American Red Cross Resuscitation Suite for their clinical staff across the board. Many customers are increasingly utilizing the chance to purchase a bundle of several of our most sought-after applications and content libraries, known as the Competency Suite. This bundling allows clients to acquire a subscription to the Competency Suite for all their nursing employees, offering unlimited usage at a discounted rate compared to purchasing each application and content individually. This approach alleviates the burden on customers of navigating multiple one-off requests and budget considerations around separate products, while also being financially beneficial for HealthStream. Sales of our Competency Suite in the third quarter rose by 18% compared to the same period last year, making it one of our largest revenue contributors in the Workforce Development sector. The third quarter also showed strong sales for our CredentialStream application, which leads our credentialing application suite. Revenue from CredentialStream sales rose approximately 23% in the third quarter compared to the same time last year, with year-to-date growth around 25%. We see credentialing as a crucial area where we are positioned to innovate, enhancing profitability and productivity for our clients. Specifically, we are upgrading CredentialStream to assist healthcare organizations in minimizing the time from when a physician begins work to when they start generating revenue from patient care. Together with our clients, we are creating solutions to cut down the roughly 120 days it takes to onboard, enroll, credential, and privilege a physician. This efficiency benefits everyone, including patients, by accelerating the readiness of physicians to provide care. Lastly, I’d like to address ShiftWizard, our main enterprise-class scheduling application, which continued to show robust revenue growth in the third quarter, with sales increasing approximately 29% compared to the third quarter last year. In terms of quarterly revenue, I mentioned last quarter that ShiftWizard surpassed our legacy ANSOS suite of products in revenue. It remains our top-performing product within our scheduling application suite. The growth trajectory of ShiftWizard indicates strong market recognition as a leading solution for clinical staff scheduling. As in prior quarters, our revenue from ShiftWizard has grown both through taking business from competitors and expanding within our existing customer base. As I wrap up, I want to remind everyone that if you're interested in a profitable recurring revenue company in the SaaS and PaaS healthcare technology space, which is expected to deliver steady, if incremental, growth, and is committed to returning some of its gains directly to shareholders in the form of dividends, HealthStream might be a company and stock you want to keep an eye on and consider investing in. With that, I look forward to sharing next year's year-end summary, which will be early next year in February. Now, let's turn it back to the operator to start the Q&A session.

Operator

Our first question comes from the line of Matt Hewitt from Craig-Hallum Capital Group LLC.

Speaker 4

Maybe first up on the Virsys12 acquisition and just a little bit more color there. So you had made the move into the payer market a few months ago. And I'm just curious, what are the key differences in that market? What are the customers in that market using prior to you kind of getting in? And where do you see that opportunity going over the next few years?

Speaker 2

Yes, I believe we are gaining insights from this. We developed a tailored version of our CredentialStream application suite for that market, which has provided us with new capabilities to manage provider rosters and other minor details. We discovered that there are additional requirements in that market. The acquisition of Virsys12 enhances our experience and background in this area. Moving forward, we plan to differentiate ourselves in the upcoming quarters. With our new team and the additional technologies, we now have a comprehensive understanding of our customers' needs. Ultimately, we foresee synergies between payers and providers utilizing a similar backend architecture, especially concerning the transfer of essential verified datasets. We are enthusiastic about this prospect. However, at this time, it remains a distinct market that employs a combination of technologies from our acquisition and our adapted CredentialStream application. We believe we will be better positioned to address their needs. Tammy Hawes, the CEO of Virsys12, has come on board to spearhead our initiatives in this market, and her team possesses deep expertise in this field. This should provide significant momentum in a market that clearly requires improved provider data management.

Speaker 4

All right. I have a separate question regarding the strong growth in your adjusted EBITDA margin this year. What are your thoughts on where that could go in the future, particularly considering the shift a few years ago towards owning more of your content? Do you see an opportunity for that to reach a 30% EBITDA margin over the coming years?

Speaker 2

If you look at the core of HealthStream from ten years ago, it was based on a razor blade strategy where we offered a high-margin learning system as a subscription. We provided a lot of content, much of which was third-party, and came with associated costs like royalties. Sometimes, we sold this content, earning a high-margin fee, while at other times, we collected revenue but faced high costs due to royalties. This model originally had a lower gross margin. However, in recent years, we have signed more favorable partnerships and launched our own libraries, allowing us to own the content, data, and delivery, which has improved our blended margins. Over the last three to four years, we've seen a rise in our margin from about 55% to 65% because most of our recent developments are higher-margin SaaS and PaaS applications. We continuously introduce new products with higher intrinsic gross and EBITDA margins, which should lead to upward pressure on our overall margins. Nevertheless, in any specific quarter, higher sales in partner products with high costs might temporarily lower our margins. For instance, we expect products like the American Red Cross Resuscitation Suite to have a lower intrinsic gross margin due to the cost of goods, even though it's an excellent product with good EBITDA margins. Being partnered with the American Red Cross, a highly recognized brand, is a privilege. However, we believe that the relative growth of higher-margin products like CredentialStream, ShiftWizard, and our policy management software will positively impact our gross and EBITDA margins in the future.

Operator

Our next question comes from Richard Close from Canaccord Genuity.

Speaker 5

Congratulations on a good quarter there. I got on the call late, but maybe wanted to hit on Virsys12 a little bit. I wasn't sure if you guys provided any revenue, I guess, details there on the business. I'm curious on the mix between maybe recurring and periodic revenue, maybe consulting, and the historical growth there. I don't know if you can provide any details.

Speaker 2

Sure, Richard. The one number we did provide was our expected contribution of revenue in the fourth quarter, which is approximately $900,000. We did not break down the mix between subscription revenue and consulting, but there is a significant component related to consulting, particularly in the implementation cycle. One of the strengths of our team is their expertise in getting enterprise-class software implemented, which should benefit us overall. While we didn't specify the breakdown, it's a reasonable mix, and the estimated revenue for Q4 is about $900,000.

Speaker 5

Okay. That's helpful. I was curious if you could discuss the monetization of the offerings in career networks and the opportunities these provide for expanding your total addressable market.

Speaker 2

Sure, let me take a moment to address that. That's a great question, and we're actively working on it. We are genuinely thrilled by the organic growth of our subscriber base for both products. NurseGrid, which we now identify as our career network for nurses, is adding about 2,000 subscribers per week without significant marketing costs, making it effectively a viral app. We're enthusiastic about this. Regarding monetization, we have over six strategies in place, each at varying stages of development. The first strategy involves offering educational resources for a direct credit card purchase to nurses through NurseGrid Learn, which is performing well with around $40,000 in monthly sales from commerce-enabled education channels. This is exciting as it provides quick revenue and value. We just introduced a jobs feature similar to LinkedIn, although we haven't yet secured our initial clients for it; however, initial engagement with the job postings has been promising, and we anticipate acquiring our first enterprise customer soon. With the size of our network, there is strong potential here, and we consider it part of our career development network that's designed to deliver value directly to nurses. We also have a partnership with a company called Plenary, which assists nurses in reducing their student debt. We have already facilitated over $2 million in loan consolidations through our network, and we share revenue with Plenary as they help nurses save money. This is an innovative solution. I'm sharing these three examples of monetization strategies, and there are more developments ahead. We are working on tools that will enable enterprise customers to interact with our network, potentially reconnecting with former employees. Our app enables a more continuous relationship between users, even in between jobs since it functions as a social platform. Both NurseGrid and myClinicalExchange are interconnected through the hStream ID, a key aspect of our Platform-as-a-Service capabilities. This integration is allowing us to add thousands of new hStream IDs to our ecosystem. Each student in myClinicalExchange receives an hStream ID, which is necessary for using the software. In myClinicalExchange, initial monetization involves a fee structure. Approximately half of the time, students pay it, while nursing schools and hospitals cover the costs 25% of the time each. This creates an election model where the entities choose who pays the nearly $30 registration fee, aiding in matching students to rotations. One of our major clients has recognized the importance of this network, as students who rotate through hospitals are often potential future employees. Our research indicates that hospitals do a poor job of informing these students of their potential value as employees. To address this, we've developed tools like My Team, which allow hospitals to communicate with students during rotations. For instance, when students are at a hospital, staff can receive alerts about their presence, encouraging them to connect and improving recruitment chances. In summary, we are linking enterprises to individuals—students engage through myClinicalExchange while hospitals connect via the My Team app included with our platform. I hope this clarifies things. Essentially, one model is subscription-based, and the other involves various LinkedIn-style monetization approaches. We are new in this space and learning quickly, and we are very excited about our organic growth.

Speaker 5

Maybe a follow-up on that. Whether it's either the career networks or some of the other parts of your platform, the enterprise side of it, do you see any opportunities to maybe monetize through something like how a Doximity does in terms of where there's some brand marketing, brand awareness from industry on the platform?

Speaker 2

We do. The clearest answer is that we are modeling NurseGrid after platforms like LinkedIn or Doximity. It's reasonable to view NurseGrid as the leading social network for nurses, which is currently expanding. Although we are new to monetizing this platform, we recognize that nurses may have a different value profile compared to physicians, who are well represented on Doximity. Nonetheless, the value of nurses is becoming more apparent. For instance, nurse practitioners are increasingly involved in prescribing, and there is a notable shortage of nurses, making staffing a critical issue. Many large health systems have prioritized developing their nursing workforce as a core part of their overall strategy. Some of these systems are even acquiring nursing schools. Therefore, we see this audience as important and expect to learn more about their significance in the coming years. Our ambition aligns with how we view Doximity and LinkedIn. While it is a significant goal for a small company, we are enthusiastic about it. We are beginning to discover various monetization avenues and have gained some promising insights as we launched several new services in the past six months.

Speaker 5

Okay. My final question is just for clarification. Regarding the HLC CredentialStream and ShiftWizard, you mentioned 7% growth, specifically 23% for CredentialStream and 29% for ShiftWizard. Were those figures related to new bookings for the quarter, or do they represent year-over-year revenue growth?

Speaker 2

They're smaller products, but that is revenue contribution. Scotty, please verify and take it forward.

Speaker 3

Yes, that's right. That's the growth in revenues Q3 of this year versus Q3 of last year.

Speaker 5

Congratulations.

Operator

Our next call comes from Vincent Colicchio from Barrington Research.

Speaker 6

Yes, Bobby, it was a great quarter for ShiftWizard. I'm wondering if the product is ready to enter large organizations. Did you make any sales to large organizations this quarter?

Speaker 2

We've got a good pipeline of medium to large enterprise opportunities. However, it's still not quite ready for the biggest players in the market, although we're making progress. We are winning some significant contracts, particularly in the upper middle class segment, with contracts exceeding $1 million. We're excited about that, but we still have work to do regarding data management. We're working on leveraging our platform data services, referred to as Insights infrastructure, into areas like credentialing and scheduling, but we're not there yet. Nonetheless, we're making headway and have a solid pipeline of these upper middle-class opportunities.

Speaker 6

No, that's good to hear. Can you provide an update on what you're seeing in the small hospital and rural hospital markets?

Speaker 2

Yes. We are developing bundling strategies to tackle the overall challenges in the marketplace. Even at a larger scale, we are focusing on bundling for cross purchases. Our goal is to be recognized as best-in-class and the most cost-effective option, especially for large customers utilizing more of our services. This approach applies to smaller hospitals as well, which are certainly experiencing financial pressures. Our strategy aims to offer the most comprehensive and highest quality solutions while providing economical options through effective bundling for these smaller facilities. Therefore, you will see us implementing more bundling strategies tailored to different markets. We recently launched our Critical Access bundle, which combines software and content. This allows clients to make fewer decisions over time by giving them the opportunity to secure a larger portion of our ecosystem under a more advantageous price per unit alongside a more complete selection of products. The Competency Suite is another bundling initiative that has begun to show positive results. This approach simplifies our product offerings, facilitating a single decision rather than multiple separate ones. In all instances, we believe enhancing our bundling efforts will not only benefit customers financially during tough times but also serve as a more effective sales strategy. For instance, our new Critical Access bundle in smaller markets stands out against competitors, incorporating software, content, and a variety of applications that many rivals lack. Instead of merely offering learning tools, which are common, we include a time management solution—something most competitors do not provide—and if they do, we enhance it with a policy management solution. Thus, bundling plays a crucial role in our strategy, addressing economic pressures for small hospitals while improving our sales effectiveness.

Operator

I am seeing that this concludes the question-and-answer session.

Speaker 2

Thank you. I do have a closing remark or two. For the analysts that are still on, I just really want to point out our guidance. We tightened the ranges, but they stayed the same, and they factor in everything we know today, including the acquisition. And so one of the things you could note from our disclosure and our discussion was that you heard all these great growth rates and they're super exciting, but also a little caveat about the drop-off in legacy software up to $3 million in the fourth quarter. So remember to listen carefully to our guidance as you think about how to model our growth rate and know that we're still working through these legacy issues, and that needs to be factored in and modeled. Now it's a positive and a negative at the same time. Some of the legacies are migrating and some are lost to the market, but that number in the fourth quarter is estimated to be about $3 million, offsetting all this wonderful and exciting new core growth in both our career networks and our enterprise-class applications. So all I'm doing is reemphasizing that in spite of all the excitement, you look at our actual guidance as we provided. We maintain the exact same midpoints as prior guidance and we narrowed the range. So we provided more clarity on the range of our expectations. With that, I want to conclude the call, and I look forward to reporting again as we report year-end results sometime late February, I believe. Thank you all for your participation and following the HealthStream story.

Operator

Thank you for your participation in today's conference. This does conclude the program, and you may now disconnect.