John Cannon
Analyst · Justin Lake from JPMorgan
Thank you, Doug, and good morning, everyone. As Doug mentioned, this morning, I'm going to focus my remarks on 3 principal areas: First, I'll provide a progress report on our second half 2012 operational and financial goals; I'll also give you an update on the business changes underlying our improved performance; And finally, I'll comment on our 2013 outlook with some broader thoughts on our longer term positioning. So let me start with an update on where we stand versus the objectives we laid out in September. Our goals in the second half of 2012 were to: first, close the Amerigroup transaction; second, improve execution against our operational and financial targets; and third, develop our 2013 plan and continue to move the company forward during this interim period. We've met these objectives, but we know that we have more work to do over the next 12 to 18 months to prepare WellPoint to capitalize on future growth opportunities, particularly in government-sponsored business. So to review our progress. We closed on the Amerigroup acquisition in the fourth quarter, which was earlier than we originally anticipated. With Amerigroup, we now serve more than 36 million medical members. We have a Medicaid presence in 20 states, which is the largest footprint in the industry, covering over 4.5 million members of various state-sponsored programs. The Amerigroup acquisition fits well with our strategic plan to position ourselves for a significant shift towards government-sponsored business. Notably, we now have a Medicaid presence in 8 of our 14 Blue states. We look forward to working with policymakers at the state and federal level to help people access the health care system in the most effective and efficient means possible. We will continue to work in a constructive and collaborative way with state and federal decision-makers to make these programs as successful as possible for the benefit of our existing and prospective customers. We have delivered on our financial commitments. Our fourth quarter results were strong, with adjusted EPS of $1.03, coming in ahead of our expectations and driving full year adjusted EPS to $7.56 versus the $7.30 to $7.40 range we previously forecasted. The year ended on a solid note, and we have been encouraged by both membership and margin trends over the last 6 months. Excluding Amerigroup, medical enrollment was essentially stable in the quarter and ended the year approximately 120,000 members above our expectations. We continue to price prudently to cover cost trends as evidenced by our results and metrics. We've seen some modest improvement in certain competitive markets during recent months, and we'll continue to watch our local markets closely as we move into the 2014 renewal cycle. We have made investments during the quarter while also maintaining discipline with respect to our administrative spending. This enabled us to exceed our goals for the quarter, even though we covered a number of severance and other expense items. Capital deployment remains strong in 2012, with a total return of nearly $2.9 billion between our share repurchase program and our dividend. We intend to remain disciplined with shareholder capital in 2013 and beyond. From a business line standpoint, I would characterize 2012 as another solid year in the Commercial segment, where operating gain grew 3.5% and operating margin expanded 50 basis points. In Medicare and Medicaid, 2012 proved to be the challenging year we had anticipated. Going forward, we see substantial room for margin improvement and growth in both of these areas with new and very experienced operational leadership, which leads me to my next point. We're moving the organization forward. I want to spend a minute on operational leadership and some of the changes we're making as an organization. With Amerigroup now closed and our CareMore model continuing to expand, we believe we have best-in-class assets in the commercial market, in the Medicaid business and with respect to chronic care. To maximize the value of these assets, we've taken targeted steps in the last several months to better align our leadership structure with the growth opportunities we see over the coming years. In Commercial, the opportunities and challenges of reform are being tackled by Ken Goulet and his team. And we have done an extensive amount of research and investment around product design and structure, which is continuing. We gained great new talent with the Amerigroup acquisition, including Dick Zoretic, who's leading our combined Medicaid businesses. Dick will also lead our dual eligible strategy, working closely with Leeba Lessin, the Head of our Medicare programs. We also believe that growth in specialty is closely linked with innovation, technological enablement and analytic capabilities. So that's why we've paired these areas under Lori Beer, who also runs our IT functions. We feel very fortunate to have these strong and operational experienced leaders in these roles as we look to capitalize on the coming revenue growth opportunities we see ahead. With the right people leading our business segments, we also need to position them for success and improve operational execution against our strategic plan. This is essential to delivering on our goals of accelerating top line and operating income growth and enhancing shareholder value. Let me offer some examples of what we are changing across the company. First, we've taken steps to decentralize certain business line decision-making by giving our P&L owners more control over the levers that most impact their businesses. This increased autonomy will be coupled with greater personal accountability for results as they now define and own their priorities and resources and have decision rights over how to best deploy those resources. Quite simply, we've better aligned responsibility and accountability. Second, we're working to simplify and streamline reporting in decision-making. As the market evolves and we enter a very dynamic period for the industry, we need to ensure we're as nimble and flexible as we can be. Third, culturally, we are creating as open and transparent an environment as we can. I firmly believe that bad news does not get better with age. And we want to make certain that we proactively address any hotspots as quickly and throughly as possible. Every business has day-to-day challenges, but the best companies succeed in addressing these quickly before they become a larger problem. Fourth, we've expanded our review process to monitor our future growth investments, our returns on those investments and the timing of those returns. We also recognize the need to remain flexible and adjust investment allocations strategically as needed. Fifth, we remain focused on addressing the issues of affordability and access with innovative products that leverage our strong provider relationships. Our deep local presence positions us to meaningfully impact health care delivery in our markets. And we're focused on payment innovation at all levels of the system, whether it's a small independent physician group or a larger hospital organization. We're determined to offer the most affordable coverage possible and to improve health care access through greater collaboration with providers and other stakeholders. Finally, we're committed to making health care reform work. That's not to suggest that the current framework is perfect. Improvements can and should be made, and we'll work collaboratively with state and federal decision-makers on that. I believe that our national scale, combined with our local market penetration, uniquely positions us to seize the opportunity to help improve clinical outcomes as well as cost effectiveness for the benefit of patients, our partners and ultimately, our shareholders. So with encouraging operating trends in the second half of 2012 and a realigned operational leadership team, we're feeling optimistic about the future. As we've said previously, 2013 will be a year of investing for growth. And it's incumbent upon us to monitor and pace those investments to ensure we're maximizing the productivity of our capital. In terms of financial targets, we expect that EPS will grow over our 2012 adjusted EPS level, albeit at a modest pace, in part because the 2012 numbers came in higher-than-expected when we last updated you, coupled with the uncertainties such as potential sequestration, the flu, underlying medical utilization and the continued implementation of health care reform. It's fair to say that we did not incorporate our full level of outperformance in the second half of 2012 into our 2013 assumptions about business trends and our initial 2013 EPS outlook. We're encouraged by the performance of our associates and the business in the last 6 months, but we also want to retain an appropriately prudent stance in our outlook in light of what we expect to be a fluid and dynamic market over the next 18 to 24 months. Additionally, we've also taken a prudent stance on pricing to cover cost trends. And our 2013 outlook includes a drag from both Amerigroup integration costs and planned incremental investments for growth of approximately $300 million. Finally, capital deployment is an area of high performance for us, and we expect to remain active with both our share repurchase program and our dividend payments. So to summarize, we're very pleased with our second half 2012 performance and feel good about how we entered 2013. Our business model is evolving to capitalize on the opportunities we see across our segments. We have experienced leaders in place to drive operational execution in their areas, and they'll be leveraging their substantial expertise to deliver on our business objectives and support growth. As I noted previously, our business operates in a challenging environment, and the next few years will bring significant change as well as opportunities, as health care reform is more fully implemented. We're determined to lead the industry through this evolution with our research-based strategy and delivery of innovative products and services to our customers. I believe we have the right people, the right assets and the right strategy to win in this new marketplace. We're confident that we can drive sustained operating income growth over the next several years. And we remain committed to a compound EPS growth rate target of 10% to 14% from 2012 through 2017. Now before I turn the call over to Wayne, I would like to acknowledge our new associates from Amerigroup. We're excited about integrating our operations over the next several months. Collectively, our enterprise now employs more than 43,000 people. And together, we serve nearly 67 million people across the country. This is an honor and a privilege, and we'll continue to make improving their health and the quality of their lives our #1 priority. With that, I'll turn the call over to Wayne to discuss our fourth quarter and full year results and 2013 outlook in more detail. Wayne?