Virtual medical care is playing an increasingly important role in the healthcare delivery system. That’s a major positive for Teladoc Health (TDOC), a telemedicine platform vendor. Teladoc shares have jumped 164% YTD. Earlier this week, the stock hit a new record high of $237.76.

Given the Covid-19 crisis, there’s now accelerated adoption of remote health services across businesses, consumers and providers. Teladoc is seeing some encouraging underlying trends in telemedicine, including broader demographic demand, with the fastest growth coming from younger people and men.

The number of specialties served by virtual care is on the rise. In addition to general medical care, there has been a notable increase in the number of patients seeking treatment for dermatology and mental health. Also, physicians are now embracing virtual care at a rate not seen in the past.

Teladoc has streamlined its provider onboarding process to expand physician capacity, recently adding thousands of new doctors to the platform. For consumers, the more doctors the better because it means a greater pool of qualified providers offering a wider array of health services. As more doctors jump on the telehealth trend, consumers will be more inclined to try out virtual healthcare. In Q1, Teladoc had more than 2 million virtual visits, up 92% year over year.

Teladoc’s Q1 revenue advanced 41% to $180.8 million. Global subscription access fees rose 29% to $137.1 million and visit fee revenue was up 93% to $43.7 million. Paid memberships in the U.S. rose 61% to 43 million. The company added 6 million+ new paid members in the U.S. across commercial and government populations. The number of individuals in the U.S. with visit-fee-only access surged 89% to 19.2 million.

Last year, Teladoc’s total revenue rose 32% to $553.3 million, with total visits up 57% to 4.1 million. For 2020, the company expects total visits of 8 million to 9 million, representing growth of 95% to 119%. That’s up sharply from the initial outlook of 5.5 million to 5.9 million visits, proof that telemedicine is reaching an inflection point (over 60% of the company’s Q1 visits were first-time users). Total U.S. paid memberships this year should reach 50 million.

In late April, Teladoc materially boosted its 2020 revenue guidance. The latest outlook of $800 million to $825 million (representing growth of 45% to 49%) came in well above the initial guidance range of $695 million to $710 million.

Since early May, the 2020 consensus revenue estimate has risen to $839.4 million (representing growth of 51.7%) from $823 million. During the same period, the 2021 consensus advanced to $1.05 billion (growth of 24.8%) from $1.02 billion. The Street-high revenue estimate for next year of $1.2 billion indicates growth of 43%. Teladoc shares recently traded at 21.8 times the 2020 consensus revenue estimate and 17.4 times the 2021 consensus.

Citi this week started coverage of Teladoc at ‘Buy’ with a price target of $275, noting that the company is showing strong growth as it disrupts the healthcare technology sector. In what it calls a new era of healthcare tech investing, Citi says it favors vendors with interoperable platforms, omnichannel distribution and strong relationships with patient aggregators. Stephens recently initiated Teladoc at ‘Overweight’ with a price target of $250, saying it expects the company to continue to build share in its large and ever-growing addressable market.

One key risk for Teladoc is the threat of increased competition, particularly in the hospital/health system segment, an area of the market where the company has been under-represented. BofA/Merrill Lynch thinks healthcare stakeholders such as payers are focused on accelerating long-term strategies tied to telemedicine. It would be a challenging headwind if more payers decide to compete directly with Teladoc.

On July 1, Teladoc completed the purchase of InTouch Health, a provider of enterprise telehealth solutions for hospitals and health systems. The deal positions Teladoc to benefit from increased demand in the provider market for an integrated solution that covers both consumer and provider-to-provider applications. InTouch Health has partnered with more than 450 hospitals and health systems covering 14,500+ physician users worldwide and supports 40+ clinical use cases. Last year, InTouch Health’s revenue of approximately $80 million grew by about 35%.

Teladoc will report Q2 results on July 29. At that time, the company will provide updated guidance that includes the InTouch Health acquisition.