Earnings Labs

Elevance Health Inc. (ELV)

Q1 2017 Earnings Call· Wed, Apr 26, 2017

$363.43

+2.07%

Key Takeaways · AI generated
AI summary not yet generated for this transcript. Generation in progress for older transcripts; check back soon, or browse the full transcript below.

Same-Day

-0.41%

1 Week

+0.51%

1 Month

+2.26%

vs S&P

+0.87%

Transcript

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Anthem First Quarter Results Conference Call. At this time, all lines are in a listen-only mode. Later, there will be a question-and-answer session, instructions will be given at that time. As a reminder, this conference is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to the company's management.

Douglas R. Simpson - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Good morning and welcome to Anthem's first quarter 2017 earnings call. This is Doug Simpson of Investor Relations. With us this morning are Joe Swedish, Chairman, President and CEO; and John Gallina, our CFO. Joe will provide some high level commentary in our first quarter financial results, discuss our business unit performance, and then provide some high-level commentary on our updated 2017 financial outlook. John will then discuss our key financial metric performance during the quarter and provide some additional details on our updated 2017 outlook, before turning the call back over to Joe to discuss the pending Cigna acquisition, and the long-term PBM solution development process. We will then be available for Q&A. During the call, we will reference certain non-GAAP measures. Reconciliations of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available on our website at www.antheminc.com. We will also be making some forward-looking statements on this call. Listeners are cautioned that these statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict, and generally beyond the control of Anthem. These risks and uncertainties can cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. We advise listeners to review the risk factors discussed in today's press release, and in our quarterly and annual filings with the SEC. I will now turn the call over to Joe.

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Doug, and good morning. We're pleased to announce strong first quarter 2017 GAAP earnings per share of $3.73, and adjusted earnings per share of $4.68, which is ahead of our expectations with membership and revenue tracking well. It was a great quarter, and John and I look forward to discussing it with you. I'm also going to offer my perspectives on the dynamic political landscape, the premium rate calculation process we will use to file preliminary rate filings in the individual ACA-compliant business, provide you an update of the pending Cigna acquisition, and provide an update on our PBM strategy. Our first quarter results reflect business performance that track well versus our expectations. Specifically, membership grew more than expected, and we reported strong quality earnings metrics, while maintaining appropriate conservatism on our balance sheet to reflect the dynamic nature of the marketplace that exists today. The company grew enrollment by 715,000 during the quarter. Insured enrollment grew by 330,000 in the quarter, driven by growth in all of our major lines of businesses. As an example of the value proposition we are bringing to the market, our Local Group fully-insured enrollment grew by approximately 50,000 lives during the quarter, well ahead of expectations and in a line of business that is contracting across the marketplace. In the Individual business, enrollment increased by 222,000 lives, and we ended the quarter with nearly 1.6 million ACA-compliant members with 1.1 million of those members on the individual exchanges. The remaining, approximately 300,000 members, are in non-ACA compliant grandmothered or grandfathered plans, which continues to decline as expected, a decline of a little less than 100,000 since the prior-year quarter. Medicare enrollment grew by 38,000 during the quarter, primarily driven by growth in our Medicare Advantage product offerings. Our self-funded business grew…

John E. Gallina - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Joe, and good morning. I'll begin by discussing the consolidated financial highlights during the first quarter. On a GAAP basis, we reported earnings per share of $3.73 in the first quarter of 2017. These results included net negative items of $0.95 per share. Excluding these items, our adjusted EPS is $4.68 for the quarter. These results were favorable to our expectations and, as Joe noted, we are pleased with our strong start to 2017. As highlighted earlier, our membership results in the first quarter were strong and translated into better-than-expected operating revenues, totaling $22.3 billion. This represents an increase of $2 billion or 9.9% versus the first quarter of 2016. The increase in revenue, as a result of premium rate increases, cover overall cost trends across all lines of business, and higher enrollment in Medicaid, Medicare, and Local Group fully-insured and self-funded businesses. These increases were partially offset by the impact of the one-year waiver of the health insurance tax in 2017, which allowed us to decrease premiums for this component as part of our efforts to address affordability. The benefit expense ratio was 83.7% in the first quarter of 2017, an increase of 190 basis points from the prior-year quarter. This expected increase was driven by the impact of the one-year waiver in the health insurance tax. As expected, the rate pressures and medical cost experienced in Medicaid is contributing to the increase. The Iowa contract, which was not effective until April 1, 2016, is the primary driver of our year-over-year increase in the medical loss ratio. These increases were partially offset by the impact of one less calendar day in 2017 as the first quarter of 2016 was a leap year, and the net impact of premium rate increases in individual business, particularly within our individual…

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Thanks, John. Relating to the pending Cigna acquisition, we continue to work through the expedited appeal process through the court system. We participated in oral arguments at the end of March, and expect to hear a decision from the appellate court relatively soon. Concurrently, we were also granted our motion for a temporary restraining order to enjoin Cigna from terminating the merger agreement. The next hearing on this motion is scheduled to be held on May 8 in the Delaware Court. We remain committed to completing the acquisition as soon as possible. Turning to discuss the process of forming our long-term pharmacy strategy, we did issue the RFP during the first quarter. And we expect to receive all responses during the first half of the year. It is important to note that we have not ruled anyone in or out as the best strategic option for the company going forward. After we receive the responses to the RFP, our pharmacy team will thoroughly and thoughtfully analyze what has been proposed in order to decide how to construct the best pharmacy solution for our members. As I previously stated, this process will be completed by the end of 2017, and we have committed to informing the market of our strategy by that time. We continue to believe that we will be able to lower our pharmaceutical cost by more than $3 billion annually in 2020 and beyond. With that, operator, please open the queue for questions.

Operator

Operator

Your first question comes from the line of Christine Arnold from Cowen. Please go ahead. Christine Arnold - Cowen & Co. LLC: Hi, there. Let's start with Individual. How did Individual develop relative to your mid-single digit range? And, given that we don't know how the risk adjuster's going to look, because they don't have the data and you are last man standing in a couple markets, how did your risk adjuster accrual look versus a year ago?

John E. Gallina - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Thank you, Christine. We're happy to respond to that question. In terms of Individual – I'm not positive what you mean by mid-single digit range, if that's the long-term aspiration in terms of profitability, we did state 90 days ago that we expected our 2017 Individual block of business to be essentially a breakeven, maybe a little bit better. So those are the expectations that we've had for the year this entire time. In terms of risk adjusters, yeah, we are a risk adjuster receiver. We have – really have designed our products and had our entire strategy around collecting receivables associated with risk adjusters. In the areas where we were the last man standing, we went back to the various states and changed our rating formulas associated with that, to get additional rates in 2017 associated with those. So, all in all, the Individual business started out 2017 significantly better than it started out 2016. However, a little bit behind our expectations. We've been very cautious in terms of recording any incremental risk adjusters in 2017 versus what we believe we are entitled to from our strategic standpoint. So to the extent that our morbidity is a little bit worse than the entire pool, we have upside associated with our expectations. If our morbidity is consistent with the overall pool, then our expectations, I think, are very prudently and appropriately stated. But at the end of the day, we do expect to be a significant risk adjustor receiver.

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

You know (32:01) John, I might add also that you just pointed out about claims per quarter being a little excess of our forecast. Our sense is that, as you would expect, one quarter doesn't make a year trend. And we're going to be monitoring this very carefully, given the fact that we've got a member mix that we still have to analyze very carefully. And our sense is that a lot will be known and become clear, as we get into the second quarter leading up to the end of June. And then, we'll be able to obviously report more details to you in the next earnings call.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Chris Rigg from Deutsche Bank. Please go ahead.

Chris Rigg - Deutsche Bank Securities, Inc.

Analyst

Good morning. Thanks for taking my questions. I guess, you've spoken a lot about the Medicaid impact in the Government segment business. But I was hoping, given the growth in Medicare, if you could give us a sense for how that side of the business is trending?

John E. Gallina - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Sure, Chris. Thank you for asking that question. We grew our Medicare Advantage by about 38,000 members in the quarter, which was consistent with our expectations. As Joe had mentioned that we have over 50% of our membership in 4-star plans. We think we're very well positioned for future growth. We are projecting to grow that membership in the double-digit range. The marketplace that we operate in has a market average growth rate of 6% to 9% per year over the next several years, and we're looking at a low-double digit growth rate in that area. We obviously have the agents that we'll get our fair share of over the rest of the year, and our operating margins right now are very much in line with our target margins associated with this line of business. So we actually think we're very well positioned and feel very good about our start of year in the Medicare arena.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of A.J. Rice from UBS. Please go ahead.

A.J. Rice - UBS Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi, everybody. I'm just going to follow up a little bit more on your comments, Joe, around your PBM contract, if I could. Obviously, there seems to be a little bit of a divergence between what you're communicating today, and what was released by your current PBM earlier in the week. I wonder if there is any way to reconcile that. And another aspect of this discussion is they put on the table $1 billion in each of the next three years plus, quote-unquote, market rates after that. Can we assume that if you're not taking that, you think you can do better than that? And then finally, on this issue, is there any update on the status of the litigation and what is happening with that? Are there any dates upcoming on the litigation with the PBM?

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Good morning, AJ. Let me take your question in the following order, dealing with, so called, reconciliation regarding what was said by ESI, the $1 billion offer, and then the litigation outlook. With respect to reconciling statements, quite frankly, that's not easy, if possible, quite frankly, because they certainly have made statements that support their perspective. We made our position very clear. We've been steady with respect to our expectations, beginning with our first declaration back in January of 2016, and I can underscore that we really have not changed our position with respect to our expectations around a $3 billion opportunity for us to recover costs that we believe we are due, relative to both our contract as well as go forward for 2020 and beyond. So I can't speak and won't speak on behalf of ESI and their perspective, other than continually refer everyone back to what we've reportedly said and, obviously, we continue to stand by our statements. I do want to underscore and I've said this repeatedly as well that we are hopeful that we can resolve our dispute with respect to our interpretation of the agreement as well as our expectations with respect to supporting our cost structure in a more positive manner, and how that then translates to support our customers. And however, we certainly are coming upon some very critical due dates. As I stated a moment ago, we have issued RFPs. We have stated that on an earlier call. We have followed through and issuing an RFP to many, many respondents. We expect to receive all the final details by the end of the first half of the year. And then, we'll go to the analytical phase, and then as I've said repeatedly, we will report to you in Q4 our decision,…

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Justin Lake from Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

Justin Lake - Wolfe Research LLC

Analyst

Thanks. First, just let me follow up on the PBM. Joe, you mentioned you haven't ruled anybody out. Does that mean that ESRX has gotten a copy of this RFP and is participating? And then, can you talk about the hybrid model that you mentioned here in terms of what that means? And is that a reason why that even though Express may or may not be offering you interesting economics here on the short term to renew, you're looking to go in a completely different direction and, therefore, the $1 billion a year settlement here to extend wouldn't be interesting to you? And can you just verify whether you feel that they have put that offer on the table in the first place? I apologize for the follow-up, but I think people are pretty interested.

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

No. It's all one big ball of yarn, and I certainly understand how you kind of packaged it together. No problem at all. I can respond and must respond as you would expect, and I don't want to comment on any specific vendor and their engagement with respect to the RFP process, where they've chosen to participate or not participate or how that – the final submittals will look. So, again, I don't want to kind of comment on who got what. So with respect to decisions, obviously, we've not made a final decision with respect to any vendor, and I have just stated that clearly that we've not done so and we've not ruled anyone in or out. I think that covers the entire spectrum of vendor possibilities. And I will leave it at that. With respect to the $1 billion statement, again, that's a statement that came from ESI, I really don't want to and can't obviously, for many, many reasons, talk about negotiation discussions. And I'd just come back to the point that's repeatedly said, we're hoping for an amicable resolution to our current litigation. What that might mean, with respect to engagement in our PBM strategy execution going forward, remains to be seen. But my sense is that we've got a lot of possibilities as we use the word repeatedly, I think I can underscore it here and answer your question yet again, and that's optionality. Optionality has been a watchword for us, and I can use the word hybrid, because hybrid means kind of a mixture of possibilities around formula management, mail order, and those kinds of things that, in terms of how you manage it, may look remarkably different than constructing a contract that maybe as old as five, six, seven, eight years. The world has changed in this space and we're certainly going to take advantage of the absolute best performance possibilities to serve our customers. I must again underscore that there has been no change to our $3 billion annual expectation for lower pharmacy costs. We are resolute on that point. We believe we've done enough analytics around market checks that we believe it's a very credible expectation, and we are holding firm on how we believe we're going to be looking at our performance for the balance in the term of agreement as well as January 1, 2010 and beyond.

Operator

Operator

You're next question comes from the line of Ana Gupte from Leerink. Please go ahead.

Ana A. Gupte - Leerink Partners LLC

Analyst

Yeah. Hi. Thanks. Good morning. I'm just trying to follow up on your guidance and the puts and takes, so I'd make sure I understood this. You beat by a significant amount, I would assume you knew about the leap day tailwind when you've guided, but your raise is $0.10. For exchanges, it's about, I guess, a little under $0.10 for every 100 basis points on margins give or take. And I'm trying to understand how much conservatism or what margins are you seeing right now, firstly, and how much potential deterioration might you expect going forward or is this mostly about the risk adjustor payment coming in less than you expect.

John E. Gallina - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Sure, Ana. Thank you for the question. First of all, I'll just clarify. Leap year does not influence our 2017 outlook. Leap year was a dynamic of 2016 that caused the first quarter of 2016 to be less profitable than it would have been on a seasonality basis. So then, when you compare the seasonality of the 2016 results for the first quarter versus our first quarter of 2017, of course, our seasonality would enhance our first quarter profitability in 2017, but for the full year, it's not relevant. In terms of the guidance, as we said, we're trying to be very prudent. I just want to be clear that the individual business is doing markedly better than it did last year. A lot of the information is consistent with expectations. The claims activity were a little bit higher to the point that as we are looking at the morbidity of the membership, it's really too early to know will our risk adjustor position be enhanced or not. And we've taken the conservative outlook that our risk adjustor position will not be enhanced. If it is enhanced, we have upside. And so we believe that we're being appropriately prudent here with our expectations for 2017, because it is so early in the year. Very clearly, we'll have a lot more information in the second quarter.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Ralph Giacobbe from Citi. Please go ahead.

Ralph Giacobbe - Citigroup Global Markets, Inc.

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. I wanted to ask on the commercial risk business. It sounds like enrollment is tracking ahead of expectation, and that's been a business that's seen some pressure and you mentioned strategies around that. I guess I just want to understand that a little bit more. And then, how much is it sort of market share gains, or are you seeing any shift from ASO to risk? Thanks.

John E. Gallina - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Great question, Ralph. We are very pleased with the growth that we've seen in Commercial fully-insured group business, and very happy with that. There has been several things. We really went to the market with improved product designs that were received very well by the marketplace. In terms of – really focused on price points, as you know, we've gone through several years of really fine-tuning our administrative cost and have really done a great job of growing membership and getting a great fixed cost leveraging associated with that, and allowed some of those savings to go through, in terms of more attractive price points to the membership. We're, obviously, ensuring we offer competitive product and, given the leading provider relationships we have, and the medical management we have and, quite honestly, the number one cost of care position we have in our marketplace, we've got a great product and really very well-positioned from a competitive marketplace. In terms of what's going on with the overall market, and is it groups going from ASO to fully-insured or are we increasing share, it's really – it has a lot to do with capitalizing on a shrinking marketplace. Joe, did you have a few other comments you wanted to add?

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Yeah. It's a great question related to our engagement in the market with our provider community. I really don't want to let the moment to go by without calling out some tremendous success in and around provider collaboration. As you know, that's been a – I'd call it a hallmark of a company now for a few years and a pillar regarding our success going forward. You used the term value, and when I speak or think about value, I'm thinking about our provider collaboration engagements, such as the 159 ACOs in our markets. We've got over 64,000 providers now engaged in ACOs, and patient-centered medical homes who are accountable for cost and quality of care for over 5.5 million commercial members, which is a huge uptick compared to prior years. It's interesting to underscore also that aggregate spend regarding value-based contracts tally up to about 58% of our total medical spend across all lines of business, and over 75% is represented by shared savings agreement, shared risk arrangements, population-based payment models. And then we've got sort of the remainder of that spread between 75% and 100% but (48:02) 58% is in various Pay for Performance arrangements. So we're really pleased with those kinds of stats. I think it really speaks volumes regarding our shift to value-based payment models in partnership with our provider community, whether it's small group practitioners, large scale organizations like Aurora Health Care in Wisconsin. There are many, many other groups that we've aligned with, with respect to our product offerings in markets that are now delivered in tandem with our provider community. So, again, I'm very proud of that performance, and I really want to call it out because I think, again, it's a hallmark of the company's performance in all the markets we're serving.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Gary Taylor from JPMorgan. Please go ahead.

Gary P. Taylor - JPMorgan Securities LLC

Analyst

Hi. Good morning. Just a two-part question. I just want to go back to guidance for a second, maybe come at it just a little bit different way. In the first quarter, earnings were up $1.22. And I know, obviously, leap year that's part of that. But for the full year, your guidance is that earnings are only up $0.60. So it implies that the combined earnings over the next three quarters are actually down. And given the increased seasonality, maybe that might be true of the fourth quarter. But just kind of wondering why that much conservatism in the remainder of the year. Is that still just primarily related to exchanges? And then the second part is, if you're – it'd be great if you could size the retro-Iowa. But also, I didn't quite understand the comment on why the Iowa rate increase wasn't yet in the guidance.

John E. Gallina - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Yes. Sure, Gary. And actually, those questions, I think, can all be answered simultaneously. I appreciate the two-part question. In terms of the first quarter and how you've calculated it, a couple of other things do need to be taken into consideration versus the expectations in your analysis. Number one, we did have the change in the treatment of the taxes associated with stock-based compensation that we implemented in the first quarter of 2017. So that was certainly additive as a one-time catch-up or true-up associated with adopting that accounting principle. And then, the second part is the retro-Iowa true-up. We really cannot go into specific dollar amounts associated with it, other than to say that that retro payment was reimbursement for a portion of the losses that we experienced in 2016 under that contract. We continue to work with the state to obtain actuary justified rates as of July 1. As those negotiations are ongoing, it really would be premature and inappropriate to comment on them publicly, other than to say that we want to be very cautious in terms of what we're including in our outlook associated with the overall situation there. So, we've again tried to be very prudent in terms of how we're looking at that. And as you look at the metrics that you rattled off, we have a prudent approach to Individual. We have a continued margin pressure in our Medicaid expansion business that we've been signaling for quite some time. It's actually very much in line with expectations, but it is a real issue. And then the seasonality of the leap year, I think, are all significant metrics that need to be taken into consideration, when you do the math that you did.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Mike Newshel from Evercore ISI. Please go ahead.

Michael Newshel - Evercore ISI

Analyst

Thanks. Good morning. So, my question is on the remaining timeline and legal strategy around the Cigna transaction. So, first, if you lose the appeal decision, is that the definitive end? Or is there any last minute hope for a DOJ settlement? And if you do win the appeal, if you're still waiting on the court, when you get to that May 8 hearing, is it your intention to ask the judge to keep the injunction in place to hold Cigna to the agreement beyond the April 30 expiration?

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Thank you very much for the question. Obviously, like you, we're kind of trying to evaluate our options depending on which way the court goes, which we believe the decision is relatively imminent with respect to the Appeals Court. And to underscore what you said, the Delaware Chancery will be convening on May 8, so there's still a lot of judicial proceedings to occur. In assessing that, we believe the Appeals Court – probably I'm telling you something you already know, but there are probably about three directions it can go in, which would be: to just categorically deny our appeal across the board; and another would be to accept it but in part, remand some of it back to the District Court; and then the final one, obviously, would be to accept our appeal in its entirety and have us move forward. So each one of those requires very significant discernment on the choices that we have and I'd probably leave any further commentary regarding our choices to another time, when it becomes clear what the court's decision is. So I really don't want to speak exactly to what we can or can't do relative to each one of the decisions. Regarding the Chancery Court, obviously, how it evaluates the situation is dependent on the appeals outcome. And so, I guess, long story short, we're going to have to judge our go forward position based on the decision by the Appeals Court. And then, obviously, make the best choice possible for us, but I do want to underscore that we are continually committed to the acquisition both with respect to the board and management. And we are proceeding with all the effort necessary to come to a reasonably good outcome regarding our commitment to the acquisition.

Operator

Operator

Your next question comes from the line of Josh Raskin from Barclays. Please go ahead.

Joshua Raskin - Barclays Capital, Inc.

Analyst

Hi. Thanks. Just two clarifications. First, I just want to make sure I understood on Iowa. Are you including a rate increase for July 1 in the guidance? And then the second question was, I think, I heard Joe talk a little bit about the long-term EPS growth rate of that high-single digit to low-double digit. Did I hear sort of a change towards the higher end? Is that something you're more comfortable with now? Or are you guys sort of shifting your thoughts on long-term EPS growth? Thanks.

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

This is Joe. I'll respond just very quickly. No, you didn't hear anything that's any different than the first comment we made with respect to high-single digit, low-double digit expectations. So, John, do you want to pick it up from here?

John E. Gallina - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Yeah. Sure. So, the first part of your question, Josh, was on Iowa. And our plan has all along been to receive actuarially justified rate increases as of July 1. We still believe we're entitled to those and we're working very closely with the state in order to achieve those. However, as I commented, the first quarter of 2017 benefited from this one-time retro premium adjustment. We are very cautious to include it, and a full actuarially justified rate increase on July 1 in our guidance or in our outlook. We believe we're entitled to it. But until we have more clarity, we don't want to get out ahead of the negotiations. But our original expectations all along have been July 1 actuarially sound rates.

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

John, I probably need to add some commentary to the question about high-single digit, low-double digit expectation on long-term growth. We do have our strategies that we are targeting, and I think it really is important to underscore that those strategies are targeted at Government Business, as you know, with respect to both Medicaid/Medicare. We've talked liberally about our Medicare outlook, particularly in terms of organic growth and combined with M&A opportunity. Our Commercial Business had a lot of targeted opportunities, particularly in the area of increased wallet share in and around specialty offerings to the market, and then membership gains and a variety of places. Our SG&A expense controls we believe will be a key contributor with respect to the operational improvements we believe are possible, as we better adapt to the marketplace, and also be able to effectively leverage our growth in membership based on very prudent and highly efficient application of our expenses. And then, finally – and I'll let John speak to this with respect to capital deployment choices that we have ahead of us. I can't leave out the PBM repricing process as well. So, in any event, we've got a very significant combined effort, a variety of opportunities that we think will take us to point of meeting the expectations that I stated last call, as well as this call. I don't know, John, if you want to add anything.

John E. Gallina - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Yeah, no, thank you, Joe. On the capital allocation, that clearly – the capital planning structure, that clearly was part of our high-single to low-double digit thought process as we go through and evaluate future M&A opportunities, share buyback opportunities, other ways to return capital to shareholders through dividends, getting an appropriate balance of all those things we think are critically important. And I just want to reemphasize, when we say high-single to low-double that is a long term view over many, many years. And obviously, some years, it can be at the lower end and some years it can be at the higher end. So any one year is not indicative of what a long-term multi-year view might be, and we are very comfortable given our strategy, given our track record and given our growth prospects, that we can achieve high-single to low-double on average over a multi-year period.

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

You know what, I think, John, just to reinforce something I said at the very beginning of my commentary, and that is internally, we are looking very carefully at our operational performance, trying to understand the transformative responsibilities we have to better manage the company in terms of supporting our business model. And in particular, now, as you've just heard, related to these strategic initiatives that we have targeted, it's not just about the pieces of the puzzle we just described, but also how we then support each part of that puzzle being accomplished with respect to our go-forward success that we envision, so a lot of internal shifts and changes with respect to better performing in support of our strategic commitment.

Operator

Operator

And your final question today comes from the line of Peter Costa from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Peter Heinz Costa - Wells Fargo Securities LLC

Analyst

Thank you. And I hate to end it and going back to the PBM, but I just want to try to continue to reconcile the differences in your statements and ESI's. You've talked about needing to get that $3 billion or believing you're owed the $3 billion in annual savings. Express has shared numbers and suggested that they can't give you $3 billion in incremental savings. So, is that really what's causing the difference in terms of their view of what you've said to them and your view of saying it's open to everybody? Is it really only open to everybody to the extent you get $3 billion in savings?

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Well, appreciate you bringing it back to the table, and hope you can appreciate my comeback, which I've repeatedly stated, which is we stand by our $3 billion expectation. And, quite frankly, we believe that's at a minimum $3 billion based on the analytics, market check performance that we've administered now over quite a lengthy period of time, and so our outlook at January 1, 2020 and beyond is very much guided by that reality. And as such, obviously, we're driven by our focus on creating value for our members and our shareholders. And you may recall what we said repeatedly is that about 20% of that pickup, and improvement is going to flow to the shareholders. Conversely, it's going to be 80% going to our members. So, it's a huge nut that we believe needs to be cracked for the benefit of so many. And I understand your question with respect to the $1 billion. But again, that's their number, and I really don't want to comment on their analytics, why they believe, what they believe. I know that all of you are very focused on applying the math to their numbers, as you do our numbers. And I'll just have to leave it at that, and let them speak for themselves, and I certainly respect where they're coming from. But obviously, we have a different point of view, and we believe it's a point of view that's validated by the statistics that have flowed out of our analytics. So we stand by our position and the negotiating process with respect to litigation we're in. I really don't want to comment on that either because there is some sanctity related to the litigation process through discovery and beyond. And I think the prudent approach is simply enough to comment on any matters of litigation.

Joseph R. Swedish - Anthem, Inc.

Management

Okay. Well, thank you for all your questions. As always, it's great to hear from you and get an appreciation for what's on your mind relative to what we've reported on for the quarter. As you know, this company is committed to running our healthcare systems challenges. We're focused on expanding access to high quality affordable healthcare for all of our customers. And I also want to thank our associates for their continued commitment to serving our 40.6 million members every day. Thanks for your interest in Anthem, and we look forward to speaking with you soon at upcoming conferences. Again, thanks for dialing in and look forward to seeing you in the future. Thank you very much.

Operator

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, this conference will be available for replay after 11 AM Eastern Time today through May 10. You may access the AT&T teleconference replay system at anytime by dialing 1-800-475-6701 and entering the access code 403153. International participants dial 320-365-3844. Those numbers once again are: 1-800-475-6701 or 320-365-3844 with the access code 403153. That does conclude your conference for today. Thank you for your participation and for using AT&T Executive Teleconference. You may now disconnect.