Critical Survey: SMS Alternatives (OTCMKTS:CICN) vs. TruBridge (NASDAQ:TBRG)

TruBridge (NASDAQ:TBRG) and SMS Alternatives (OTCMKTS:CICN) are both small-cap medical companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their profitability, institutional ownership, dividends, valuation, analyst recommendations, earnings and risk.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares TruBridge and SMS Alternatives”s revenue, earnings per share and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
TruBridge	$337.67 million	0.93	-$44.76 million	($4.09)	-5.15
SMS Alternatives	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A	N/A

SMS Alternatives has lower revenue, but higher earnings than TruBridge.

Insider and Institutional Ownership

88.6% of TruBridge shares are held by institutional investors. 3.6% of TruBridge shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 89.0% of SMS Alternatives shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Profitability

This table compares TruBridge and SMS Alternatives’ net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
TruBridge	-17.72%	1.78%	0.78%
SMS Alternatives	N/A	N/A	N/A

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings and target prices for TruBridge and SMS Alternatives, as reported by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
TruBridge	0	2	2	0	2.50
SMS Alternatives	0	0	0	0	0.00

TruBridge presently has a consensus price target of $14.50, suggesting a potential downside of 31.18%. Given TruBridge’s stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, research analysts clearly believe TruBridge is more favorable than SMS Alternatives.

Risk and Volatility

TruBridge has a beta of 0.67, meaning that its stock price is 33% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, SMS Alternatives has a beta of -0.81, meaning that its stock price is 181% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

TruBridge beats SMS Alternatives on 8 of the 10 factors compared between the two stocks.

About TruBridge

TruBridge, Inc. provides healthcare solutions and services for community hospitals, clinics, and other healthcare systems in the United States and internationally. The company operates in three segments: Revenue Cycle Management (RCM), Electronic Health Record (HER), and Patient Engagement. It focuses on providing RCM solutions for care settings, regardless of primary healthcare information solutions provider along with business management, consulting, managed IT services, and analytics and business intelligence. The company provides acute care solutions and related services for community hospitals, and physician clinics; and patient engagement and empowerment technology solutions to improve patient outcomes and engagement strategies with care providers. In addition, it offers patient liability estimates eligibility verification, claim scrubbing and submission, remittance management, denial/audit management, and contract management; and offers RCM services, such as accounts receivable management, private pay service, medical coding, revenue cycle consulting, and other additional insurance and patient billing services. Further, it offers consulting and business management services; managed IT services; encoder solutions; patient management; financial accounting; clinical; patient care; and enterprise applications. Additionally, it offers TruBridge HER platform, including total system support, national client conference, continuing education, software releases, hardware replacement, cloud electronic health record, forms and supplies, and public cloud infrastructure services; post-acute care software systems, and support and maintenance services; and InstantPHR, an interactive portal and CHBase which funnels data from multiple sources into one platform. The company was formerly known as Computer Programs and Systems, Inc. and changed its name to TruBridge, Inc. in March 2024. TruBridge, Inc. was founded in 1979 and is headquartered in Mobile, Alabama.

About SMS Alternatives

SMS Alternatives Inc. provides business integration software solutions in the United States and Europe. The company's software enables organizations to integrate new and existing information and processes at the desktop; and addresses the need for a company's information systems to deliver enterprise-wide views of their business information processes. It offers Cicero Discovery, a configurable tool to collect activity and application performance data, and track business objects across time and multiple users, as well as measure against a defined expected business process flow; and Cicero Insight, a measurement and analytics solution that collects and presents information about quality, productivity, compliance, and revenue from frontline activity to target areas for improvement. The company also provides Cicero Automation that delivers features of the Cicero Discovery product, as well as desktop automation for enterprise contact center and back office employees; integrates applications and automates workflow; and control and adaptability at the end user desktop. In addition, it offers technical support, training, and consulting services. The company sells its products and services directly, as well as through distributors and other intermediaries who resell it to end-users. It serves financial services, insurance, and telecommunications industries; and business process outsourcers, as well as intelligence, security, law enforcement, and other governmental organizations. The company was formerly known as Cicero Inc. and changed its name to SMS Alternatives Inc. in June 2023. SMS Alternatives Inc. was founded in 1988 and is headquartered in Cary, North Carolina.