Healtheon to Buy ActaMed for $150 Million

Healtheon Corp. said it will buy closely held ActaMed Corp. for $150 million in stock to expand its business of helping doctors, managed-care companies and insurers exchange data electronically. Healtheon also said it may sell shares in an initial public offering. But the company, founded by Netscape Communications Corp. Chairman Jim Clark in June 1996, “has some additional work to do” before an IPO, and any sale isn’t likely before early 1999, spokeswoman Debra Jones said. Palo Alto-based Healtheon provides software and networks that let workers select employers’ health-care plans and find information using the Internet. Adding Atlanta-based ActaMed would give Healtheon networks that let doctors electronically contact companies or find out how much they’ll be paid for different procedures, Jones said. Its networks connect more than 60,000 health-care providers.