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[MM Curator Summary]: Lose 260k in Medicaid lives, gain 3.7M in commercial lives.
July 28, 202310:31 AM CDTUpdated 5 days ago
A person walks by a Wellcare and Fidelis Care location, part of the Centene Corporation, in Queens, New York, U.S., November 16, 2021. REUTERS/Andrew Kelly
July 28 (Reuters) – Centene Corp (CNC.N) said on Friday it was working to enroll people back into government-backed Medicaid plans after the end of pandemic-relief measures left hundreds of thousands of members without coverage.
Medicaid memberships, the largest contributor to Centene’s revenue, were hit by the removal of pandemic-related relief measures on April 1 that rendered several members ineligible for insurance coverage.
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The relief withdrawal allowed states to resume their routine check to determine if people qualified for the government-backed health insurance plan for low-income people or not.
Centene lost a little more than 260,000 Medicaid members in the second quarter due to redetermination, and had around 16 million members under Medicaid as of June 30. Shares of Centene declined nearly 5% to $66.50 in morning trade following its earnings, but the company said it has launched a major outreach effort to recapture some people who may still be eligible for Medicaid but were disenrolled.
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“Year-to-date, we have made 9 million outreach attempts, with early indications of higher-than-normal member engagement,” said CEO Sarah London in the earnings conference call.
The company on Friday, however, beat Wall Street estimates for second-quarter profit, helped by strong membership growth in its commercial marketplace business even as a fall in Medicaid memberships hurt.
“Medicaid redeterminations have started cutting into its Medicaid population and look likely to constrain its results in the near-term, especially in 2024,” said Morningstar analyst Julie Utterback, but added that the commercial business growth appeared robust.
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Centene’s commercial plans saw a 62% jump in memberships to 3.73 million, as of June 30. The insurer also raised its full-year earnings adjusted profit forecast by 5 cents to at least $6.45 per share on expectations that premium collections will be higher this year from the commercial health insurance business.
On an adjusted basis, the company earned $2.10 per share in the second quarter, above estimates of $2.03.
Reporting by Mariam Sunny and Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli and Shounak Dasgupta
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