Apr 16, 2015 |
By Allison Bell
Executives did
not talk about the PPACA risk-management programs.
Executives at UnitedHealth Group Inc. (NYSE:UNH) said
little today about the company's new public exchange program as they reviewed
first-quarter earnings.
The company now
has 570,000 exchange qualified health plan (QHP) enrollees.
Dave Wichmann,
president of the company's UnitedHealthcare unit, said during a conference call
with securities analysts that the number of QHP enrollees is "well ahead
of our earnings outlook..
But Wichmann
and other executives who participated in the call said nothing about the
demographics of the QHP enrollees, early claims experience, or thoughts about
the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) risk-management
programs.
UnitedHealth is
selling QHP coverage through 23 PPACA exchanges this year, up from five in
2014
"In our
earnings outlook, and as we have said before, we do not expect meaningful
financial contributions from these customers in 2015," Wichmann said.
The company's
Optum health services unit runs a pharmacy benefits management (PBM) program,
and many of the questions analysts asked focused on the unit's proposed acquisition of a stand-alone PBM, Catamaran Corp.
UnitedHealth as
a whole is reporting $1.4 billion in net income for the first quarter on $36
billion in revenue, up from $1.1 billion in net income on $32 billion in
revenue for the first quarter of 2014.
The company
ended the quarter providing or administering medical coverage for 42 million
people in the United States, and 4.2 million people in other countries. The
number of U.S. enrollees rose from 40 million a year earlier. The number of
non-U.S. enrollees was down from 4.7 million.
The
UnitedHealthcare unit is reporting $1.9 billion in operating earnings for the
latest quarter on $33 billion in revenue, up from $1.4 billion in operating
earnings on $29 billion in revenue.
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