James H. Bloem
Analyst · Goldman Sachs
Thanks, Bruce, and good evening, everyone. Let's start a detailed review of both our second quarter results and revised 2012 full year guidance of $6.90 to $7.10 per share, by first looking at the second quarter by itself. Our reported second quarter earnings per share of $2.16 after adjustment for prior year favorable medical claims reserve development of $0.15 per share approached the $2.03 per share midpoint of our May 21 guidance. However, as we analyzed our June results, it became apparent that although we fell within the range of our second quarter forecast, we needed to lower our full year 2012 earnings per share guidance range. So turning now to the full year, this slide displays the major changes from our previous second quarter and full year forecast to our revised full year guidance, including the significant changes for each of our business segments. As noted on the previous slide, we experienced $40 million of consolidated favorable prior-year medical claims development, which was comprised of $24 million in the Retail Segment, $12 million in the Employer Group Segment and $4 million in our other businesses, primarily Medicaid. For the rest of my remarks, I will elaborate on the remaining guidance changes by segment. First, so now looking in detail at the Retail Segment, the attached slide highlights the key changes in both the quarter and full year. For the full year, you can see the $270 million reduction in our expected individual Medicare Advantage underwriting results. This is attributable to the new membership and increased claims cost, which Jim Murray and Bruce Broussard just described. In the second quarter, we were $91 million below the forecast for these same 2 items. Also detailed on the slide in the second quarter, we recognized $73 million of unfavorable claims development from the first quarter on our individual Medicare Advantage book. This trended to a corresponding additional $82 million of unfavorable impact on our second quarter results, totaling $155 million for the second quarter and yielding a $311 million increase in expected Medicare Advantage claims for the full year. On the positive side, we also received updated risk adjustment payment information from CMS in early July. This resulted in a $41 million increase in our expected full year premiums per member. Combining the $311 million of expected increase in full year claims with a partially offsetting $41 million increase in full year premiums per member, yields a net individual Medicare Advantage shortfall of $270 million as shown and discussed. This slide further indicates that the second quarter also benefited from $64 million of premium risk adjustments, as $23 million of our full year estimate occurred earlier in the year than we previously forecasted. Further, we have included $46 million for additional investments in the second half of the year. These investments primarily represents the steps we are taking to strengthen our clinical capabilities and the 15 Percent Solution, as Bruce just discussed. Although we recognize that making these investments now will unfavorably impact our expected 2012 results, we concluded that making them is in the best interest of our members and shareholders, as we believe these investments will continue to position us to further improvement in our 15 Percent Solution. Next, you can also see from the slide that our remaining Retail Segment operations are expected to improve by $32 million for the full year. This improvement is attributable, primarily to our PDP business, which continues to perform well. Finally, with respect to this slide, we've also included the year-to-date and full year Retail Segment benefit ratios for both 2011 and 2012 at the bottom of the slide. This comparison shows that we now expect the full year to be 350 basis points higher than last year, while the year-to-date is up only 220 basis points. This in turn implies that we now expect the year-over-year spread to be larger in the second half of the year relative to the year-to-date and there are 2 reasons why this spread widening is occurring. First, as we discussed last year, we experienced lower drug cost in the second half of 2011 as a result of both patent expirations and lower wholesale acquisition prices for several highly used generics. Accordingly, in the second half of 2012, there's no similar benefit in the year-over-year comparison. Second, in accordance with our long-standing practice, we've not included any prior year development in our forecast for the second half of 2012, whereas our second half of 2011 results included $75 million of favorable prior period development, which we disclosed with those results. Turning now to the Employer Group Segment, we're pleased to be raising our guidance today by $60 million. This improvement is occurring, primarily in both our commercial group lines of business. With respect to commercial claims trends, we've consistently stated that we expect a gradual uptick in utilization at some point and accordingly, we've guided and more importantly, priced assuming the 6% to 6.5% secular trend in 2012, which is a 100 to 150 basis points increase over the 2011 secular trend of approximately 5%. Last quarter, we indicated that we're seeing full year secular trend in the Employer Group Segment move toward the low end of the 6.5% -- 6% to 6.5% range and now estimate that the full year will be around 6%, plus or minus 50 basis points. This level of trend still contemplates an uptick in the back half of the year as we have run below 6% for the first half of the year on our commercial products. To further elaborate on commercial cost trends, we continue to see declining levels of inpatient hospital utilization in the negative low- to mid-single digits. However, this is accompanied by a shift to outpatient procedures without patient utilization trending slightly higher than last year but still in the low-single digits. Inpatient and outpatient hospital rates continue to be in the mid-single digits and we continue to see physician and prescription drug costs trending in the low- to mid-single digits. So to summarize our commercial trend expectations, while we still expect a gradual uptick in commercial trends in the coming quarters, the pace of the uptick is slower than we anticipated in our pricing, and this is the primary reason for the $60 million increase in our pretax guidance for the Employer Group Segment. Turning next to the Health and Well-Being Services segment, we also are pleased to be raising our guidance for the full year by $60 million, including operating over performance in the second quarter of $41 million. This operating over performance is primarily driven by RightSource, our mail-order prescription drug operation and can be primary attributed to 3 things. First, we've increased penetration into our membership base beyond our initial expectation. Currently, 23% of all prescription drugs dispensed in connection with all of our retail and Employer Group health plans are filled via RightSource. Second, we continue to improve our cost of goods sold by both leveraging our volumes and recontracting with suppliers. And third, we continue to lower our costs to fill through increasing scale and streamlining our operations. Turning finally to our other businesses. Our second quarter results included a significant amount of legal fees associated with the previously announced settlement of the Sacred Heart litigation. The second half of the year is expected to be better, primarily due to an improved outlook for our military business. To conclude, we recognize that we've shared a lot of information with you today and appreciate your patience during our prepared remarks. We're confident in our ability to successfully address these short-term Retail Segment challenges and resume our earnings growth. With that, we will open our phone lines for questions, and we request that each caller ask only 2 questions in fairness to those still waiting in the queue. Operator, will you please introduce the first caller?