JP Morgan Healthcare Conference and Earnings 2022
A busy month as the 41st Annual J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference will kick off in San Francisco January 9th-12th and then follow that up with 2022 earnings for the Big Six Payors. Below are the schedule of events and the major themes that I am going to following over the next 6 weeks at these events:
UnitedHealth Group- Kick off the earnings season next Friday (1/13/23) and it does not appear like they are presenting at JP Morgan. Major themes to watch for with UnitedHealth Group will be their M & A budget headed into 2023 as they spent 20 billion in 2022 versus only 5 billion in 2021. Will Optum continue to fuel growth of top-line revenue with OptumHealth (34%), OptumInsight (18%) and OptumRX (8%) along with Change Healthcare acquisition updates. Did the Medicare Advantage open enrollment get them to their annual growth goal of 900,000 new MAPD members in 2022. How are they thinking about the Medicaid redeterminations and do they feel those will roll into their ACA/Marketplace offerings.
Elevance (Anthem)- 2022 earnings call will be 1/24/23 and I do not see them on the agenda for JP Morgan either. I will be looking for updates on how the development of the Carelon businesses is progressing along with indications of which businesses are driving growth at Carelon (CarelonRx/Beacon/myNexus/AIM Specialty/ZipDrug/etc.). Looking for an update on their Medicare Advantage business and any growth it got during the open enrollment period as it looks like they are 4th in size nationally in the MAPD market headed into the open enrollment. How are they feeling about Medicaid redeterminations as they are 2nd in the Managed Medicaid space and do they feel good about scooping them into ACA/marketplace.
Cigna- Reports earnings 2/3/23 but is presenting at JP Morgan conference 1/10/23 @ 5:15pm EST. Major themes to follow at Cigna will be short term costs related to the Express Scripts win at Centene along with some projections around upside with the win. With Cigna being a big commercial plan, how big are the opportunities for them to lose or win business as they think about the 2024 commitments. How was their customer growth in 2022 (5-7%) and how are they thinking about share repurchases versus M & A opportunities in 2023. I know that they have a small Medicare Advantage(500k lives) business but have mentioned wanting to grow it so how did they do in the open enrollment. Did the strong growth of Evernorth continue through the end of the year and how are they thinking about growth with MDLive headed into 2023.
Humana- Reports earnings 2/1/23 and is presenting at JP Morgan 1/9/23 @ 6:45pm EST. Obviously I will be watching their Medicare Advantage enrollment numbers as they are the second largest insurer in this line of business. Want an update on their acquisition strategy around adding more provider networks through M & A as they were projecting to add 30-35 in 2023 to bring their total to over 250. They had concerns on a heavy flu season along with some provider inflation that may affect their margins in Q4 so I am interested to hear an update on those along with an update on how their capitation efforts are coming (15% in 2022). Their efforts to use digital tools to drive members to use mail order pharmacy is also a big initiative that they were discussing in 2022.
Centene- Reports earnings 2/6/23 and is presenting at JP Morgan 1/9/23 @10:30am EST. Biggest news was them losing the TriCare West business (1.5 million covered lives) to the Blues but some positive news with the Medi-Cal win that was just announced. As nearly 20% of the Medicaid lives in the US, it will be interesting to hear their updates on the headwind estimates of the medicaid redeterminations (7-8 billion dollar estimate before). The Magellan sale closed so some additional details around paying down debt and share buyback program headed into 2023. An update on their savings with the move from Caremark to ESI and what that may look like.
CVS- Reports earnings 2/8/23 and is presenting at JP Morgan 1/10/23 @ 11:15am EST. Update on the Signify Health acquisition along with the intended sale of Bswift and Omnicare. Looking for an update on their strategy of share buybacks versus deploying additional capital into M&A in 2023. Also looking for an update on the Medicare Advantage enrollment (ranked 3rd domestically in MAPD market) numbers for Aetna even as their STAR ratings took a hit in Q3. Hoping for some additional thoughts around overall member growth and their plans to replace the Centene PBM revenue.