Waystar Considers Sale of Healthcare Payments Software Firm

Such a deal could return Waystar to private ownership two years after the company went public, according to a Tuesday (Sept. 15) Reuters report citing seven sources familiar with the matter.

Sources say the company has hired bankers to advise on a possible sale, though the plans could change and sale may not come to pass. PYMNTS has contacted Waystar for comment but has not yet gotten a reply.

The report notes that Waystar aimed to establish itself as a healthcare software company, selling technology to automate and manage administrative work, instead of as a healthcare services business that depends more on people to perform those tasks.

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This strategy was designed to reach the higher valuations typically given to tech companies as Waystar went public in 2024, Reuters added.

Investors were on board at first, though the stock came under pressure amid concerns that software firms were vulnerable to artificial intelligence (AI)-related disruption, Reuters said, citing a report from Morgan Stanley.

In related news, PYMNTS wrote Tuesday about a pair of recent headlines that show how “the healthcare space is turning into a surprisingly useful laboratory for the future of B2B payments.”

Forus, an AI network for medicine, announced a $150 million in Series C financing at a $3 billion valuation last week. The following day Verily Health said it had landed a new investment from Nvidia as well as additional investments from its existing investors on Sept. 9 to help healthcare organizations make their data AI-ready and responsibly deploy artificial intelligence.

“After all, AI agents are beginning to perform administrative healthcare work that requires them to navigate precisely the problems enterprise commerce will eventually face across workflow soft spots like identity, delegated authority, policy interpretation, documentation, counterparty communication, exceptions and escalation,” the report said.

“Software isn’t simply being asked to complete a task. It is being asked to act on behalf of someone else inside a system of rules and leave enough evidence behind for another party to trust the result. That may be the missing infrastructure layer in agentic payments.”

Also this week, PYMNTS examined how agentic AI is letting healthcare organizations address a trio of ongoing problems: securing insurance approval, keeping patients on track and getting people enrolled in clinical trials.