Going into its IPO, investors were expecting nice gains from Emdeon. Well, the company did not disappoint. Last night, the company priced 23.7 million shares at $15.50 (this was an 11% increase in the number of shares). It was at the top of its $13.50-$15.50 range.

Emdeon runs a sophisticated platform that connects payers, providers and patients in the US healthcare system (built over the past 25 years). Yes, in light of the proposed reforms from the Obama Administration, this is certainly an attractive space. After all, a big goal is to find ways to cut costs -- and technology should be a key.

Despite various reforms, health care still represents a growing part of the U.S. economy -- consuming about 16% or $2.1 trillion of GDP. In fact, the growth rate is expected to be about 6.7% per year until 2017 (amounting to $4.3 trillion or 20% of GDP).

A big component of these expenditures is administration (representing about $360 billion or so). And, this is what Emdeon is focused on. The company has recently filed to go public.

Basically, Emdeon provides revenue and payment cycle management solutions. This involves connecting payers, providers and patients. Some of the capabilities include pre-care patient eligibility and benefits verification, claims management and adjudication, payment distribution, payment posting and denial management, and patient billing and payment collection.

All in all, Emdeon has built a solid platform. Last year, revenues came to $808.5 million, with adjusted EBITDA of $182.8 million (90% to 95% of revenues are recurring in nature). The company's system processed 3.7 billion transactions last year.

Emdeon is backed by two major private equity firms: General Atlantic and Hellman & Friedman LLC. And the lead underwriter is Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS).

You can locate the prospectus at the SEC website.

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He is also the founder of BizEquity, a valuation website.