David Michael Cordani - Cigna Corp.
Management
Good morning. It's David. Let me give you a little bit of insight relative to the 2018 season. So I'll start with some color relative to the national account market, which is the most tangible market to speak to right now, given that it has a little bit broader selling cycle, and then give you a little bit of insight relative to your question on the HIF. First, relative to national accounts, I'd remind you that we define that segment a little differently than the industry. Specifically, when we refer to national, it's commercial employers with 5,000 or more employees in multiple states. Secondly, I'd just remind you our strategic goal has been to hold share from an aggregate standpoint but to deepen share with employers who value incentive and engagement-based programs, and then further deepen our relationship with our clients through leveraging our specialty and clinical programs. And I would note that 2017 has been a good year for that business segment. As it relates to 2018, what we've seen is that the RFP process, so the inbound opportunities for new growth opportunities, are up relative to 2016 meaningfully. I'd note that the 2016 volumes were low for the industry because there was a lot of industry disruption. But the 2018 volumes look a little bit more like 2016, and they're up meaningfully. To put that in context, the percent of our business that's out to bid is up a little bit, but nowhere near as meaningfully as the inbound opportunities. And we would expect as we look at 2018 to continue to have a very strong client retention rate. As it relates to broader purchasing trends, building on the prior comments, we continue to see across all segments high interest levels in incentive and engagement-based programs, which tend to leverage the transparent funding programs because they just create greater alignment with the employer, and as such, the individual customer employee, and enable you to get better mentally incentive alignment by targeted clinical programs, and we see that trend continuing. Lastly, as it relates to the HIF, the industry has a mechanism with which to previously pull out the pricing impact of the HIF and now put the pricing impact of the HIF back in. And we do not see a demonstrable change in purchasing patterns as it relates to guaranteed cost or transparent funding program as a result of that.