STAT+: Medicare Advantage challenges catch up to UnitedHealth
Over the past two years, UnitedHealth Group seemed immune from the higher costs and systemic changes in the Medicare Advantage program that bedeviled its rivals. Until now.
Over the past two years, UnitedHealth Group seemed immune from the higher costs and systemic changes in the Medicare Advantage program that bedeviled its rivals. Until now.
UnitedHealth, the country’s largest health insurance and services conglomerate, slashed this year’s profit projections by 12% last month, sending its stock down more than 20%. Its Medicare Advantage members got more care than expected, and separately, the company realized that revenue from coding patients in its physician clinics would be a lot lower than anticipated.
Since the start of the Covid-19 pandemic, UnitedHealth often has been an outlier in its dominance, weathering nearly all fluctuations in patient care patterns with relative ease — and never lowering earnings. But now, UnitedHealth pretty much stands alone in its financial miscues, a stark contrast from its Medicare Advantage competitors that dazzled Wall Street with hefty profits in the first three months of this year.
