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InnovAge Holding Corp. (INNV)

Q4 2021 Earnings Call· Tue, Sep 21, 2021

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Transcript

Operator

Operator

Thank you for standing by and welcome to InnovAge’s Fiscal 2021 Fourth Quarter Earnings Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speaker presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions]. I will now like to hand the conference over to your host Director of Investor Relations, Ryan Kubota.

Ryan Kubota

Analyst

Thank you, operator. Good afternoon and thank you all for joining InnovAge’s fiscal 2021 fourth quarter earnings call. With me today are key members of our leadership team, Maureen Hewitt, President and CEO and Barb Gutierrez, CFO. Today after the market closed, we issued a press release containing detailed information of our quarterly and annual results. You may access the release on our company website innovage.com. For those listening to the rebroadcast of this presentation, we remind you that the remarks made herein are as of today Tuesday, September 21, 2021 and have not been updated subsequent to the initial earnings call. During this call, we will refer to certain non-GAAP measures, a reconciliation of these measures with the most directly comparable GAAP measures can be found on our fiscal fourth quarter 2021 press release which is posted on the investor relations section of our website. During our call, we will be making forward-looking statements, including statements related to our growth prospects, regulatory and other expectations, and our outlook on fiscal year 2021, 2022. Listeners are cautioned that all of our forward-looking statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties that can cause our actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. We advise listeners to review the risk factors discussed in our IPO prospectus filed on March 5, 2021. As well as our upcoming Form 10-K annual report for fiscal year 21. That will be filed with the SEC on September 22, 2021. After the completion of our prepared remarks, we'll open the call to take your questions. I will now turn the call over to our President and CEO, Maureen Hewitt. Maureen?

Maureen Hewitt

Analyst

Thank you, Ryan, and thank you all for joining us this afternoon. I'm pleased to report that we had a strong finish to our fiscal year ended June 30, 2021. Let me first provide a brief summary of our performance. Barb will provide additional details on our fourth quarter and fiscal year end results as well as an update on our fiscal 2022 outlook in a few minutes. As of June 30, 2021, InnovAge served more than 6850 participants. This represents a nearly 7.5% increase year-over-year, and is just over the midpoint of the guidance we provided last quarter. On our last call, all of our InnovAge centers in the western and central regions were open. And we expected to open our centers in Pennsylvania and Virginia shortly. I'm pleased to say that we are able to open all of our centers to our participants as of July 6, consistent with the National decline in COVID trends. We reported strong revenue of approximately 638 million for fiscal year 2021 exceeding the high end of our guidance estimate. This represents an increase of approximately 12.5% compared to the previous fiscal year. We also reported a center level contribution margin of 27.3% or approximately 174 million for fiscal year 2021. This is an increase of nearly 33 million compared to fiscal 2020. I will now provide an update on our growth strategy. We have site selected with signed leases for three de novo centers, one in Louisville, Kentucky, and two centers in Florida, one in Orlando and one in Tampa. In all three sites, we are renovating or plan to renovate existing buildings and we are diligently working through the development process. We currently expect these three centers to open in fiscal year 2023. However, as with every development, there are factors…

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

Thank you, Maureen. Before we open the call to questions, I want to provide some highlights from our fourth quarter and fiscal year-end financial performance for 2021. An update on Medicaid rates for fiscal year 2022 and then provide our fiscal year 2022 outlook. With respect to our fourth quarter results and the developments due to a decrease in COVID transmission rates during the period. I will refer to sequential comparisons to the third quarter in order to provide a more meaningful picture of our performance. We produced strong financial results in the fourth quarter and ended our fiscal year with 18 centers and a census of just over 6850 participants as of June 30, 2021. Compared to the prior year, this represents an ending census increase of nearly 7.5%. Member months for the fiscal year ended June 30, 2021 of over 79,400 were 6% higher than the prior year. During the fourth quarter census growth and referrals continue to improve and return to levels experienced prior to the second wave of COVID which impacted our business primarily in Q3. We also continue to see indications that gross enrollments were trending above pre-COVID levels, bolstered by the realignment in our marketing strategy to focus more on digital channels to reach those searching for senior care alternatives. Revenue grew approximately 12.5% to $637.8 million for fiscal year 2021 primarily driven by an increase in Part C and Part D Medicare rates, the temporary suspension of sequestration and census growth. Fourth quarter revenue grew by 9.8% to $171.6 million compared to the previous quarter, due to adjustments that included $4.5 million of risk adjustment factor, RAF true up payments received from CMS, $1.8 million of Part D bid reconciliation true up and an adjusted estimate of $4.5 million of revenue recorded in…

Operator

Operator

[Operator Instructions] Our first question comes from the line of Vikram Kesavabhotla of Baird.

Vikram Kesavabhotla

Analyst

I want to start on the 4Q results. And in particular, it looks like you landed in your guidance range per census and for member months. But it looks like you beat the high-end of the revenue range. So we just love to understand some of the drivers of the outperformance there. I know you mentioned some of the rate increases. But it sounds like a lot of that took effect on July 1. So would be helpful to get some color on the factors that influenced 4Q specifically?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

It's Barb. I'll take that. Yes. So in the fourth quarter, as it was outlined in my remarks, just a few minutes ago, we had some additional adjustments to revenue positive adjustments to revenue, which included the risk adjustment factor true up payment from CMS, which is typical in the fourth quarter. And that was about 4.5 million. We had 1.8 million of our Part D bid reconciliation true ups in the quarter. And then, we had some additional 4.5 million of revenue that was recorded in the fourth quarter that really was related to the entire fiscal year, as a result of an internal reconciliation of rates with one of our states. Sometimes these states pay us incorrectly or it takes some additional time to get the technical information to apply the payments and the rates. So that also occurred in the fourth quarter. So those three things contributed to the revenue being outside above the top-end of the guidance range.

Vikram Kesavabhotla

Analyst

Okay, great. And then just to follow up on some of your comments about Colorado, appreciate it sounds like you're getting the results of those findings in early 2022. But I guess could you just help us understand the range of outcomes that could come from those audits? And yeah, I guess ultimately, could Colorado result in a freeze, like what you described in Sacramento and maybe if you can give some color there just based on your historical experiences with those audits? And just taking that a step further, I mean, given the freeze that you called out in Sacramento and the ongoing audits in Colorado, what is your guidance for fiscal '22 census and member months assume with respect to those regions? Thanks.

Maureen Hewitt

Analyst

This is Maureen. I'll start it off and then Barb, you can talk a little bit as well and add some color around it. As far as Colorado, we do not have the outcome of the Colorado. As you know, we are a health care provider. We take care of our seniors, and we are highly regulated. So there is always going to be a risk around surveys and survey outcomes. Our job, and our job of our leadership, our management, clinicians, and operations, is to make sure that we adhere to compliance and have solid plans of correction and work with our state and federal regulators. So we can't give you any guidance around Colorado at this time. And as soon as we know and there may be a question too, that maybe there's some relationship between Sacramento and Colorado. And we don't have any knowledge that those two things are related.

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

Yes. This is Barb. As it relates to guidance, generally speaking, our guidance just -- it reflects what we believe are achievable results. We have taken into consideration the enrollment freeze for Sacramento in our guidance. We have taken that into consideration. And then, we'll also just remind you, as was in the previous remarks, our guidance does not include any potential acquisitions as well.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jeff Garro of Piper Sandler.

Jeff Garro

Analyst

So I'll maybe follow up on the last comment on M&A. So it does seem like M&A processes have been elongated. So I was hoping for any further update on the near-term pipeline, and what might serve as a catalyst to get any deals over the finish line?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

Yes, sure. So I'll just talk a little bit about the pipeline in general. So we've outlined our pipeline here. And some of the catalysts that we've explained in the past that it's a long process, not necessarily all within our control, that includes state approvals and CMS approvals and fighting real estate and all that goes with that. So while, it might be on the back end, there's a couple in the elongated process. So also note, compared to some of our earlier thoughts, we've actually accelerated a couple of the de novos as well. So we are moving as fast and furiously as we can, as it relates to de novos. As Maureen said in her remarks, we've entered into leases and are in the construction phases in three of those de novos as we speak. So we feel very positive about our de novo pipeline and our progress there.

Jeff Garro

Analyst

That's great to hear. Maybe a couple questions for me. The FY 22 guidance and particularly around enrollment growth and rapid impact the risk adjustment factor, you're just thinking about potential variability of impact from COVID. Any comments you could give on seasonality of enrollment growth beyond the first quarter would be helpful and expectations for ability to capture accurate RAF scores as care might have been deferred with impact from COVID over the last year or so?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

Sure. I'll start maybe with a high-level comment that might answer some of that. And that is, as it relates to our guidance and the growth in that enrollment over the course of FY 22. About just under 80% of that growth comes from volume and about 20%, 22% actually comes from rate. And so a couple points there, we've indicated that we have good visibility into the first quarter and our first quarter, we know we've grown 2%, quarter-over-quarter. We see some acceleration over the course of the year to achieve the full year growth. So hopefully, that gives you a little bit of sense of the timing. In terms of the rate and that 22% that I speak about in terms of the rate increases, we are being what we consider to be neutrals kind of appropriately conservative, if you will, related to the Medicare increases, particularly for the things that you mentioned, there's a lot of unknowns coming out of COVID. We feel very comfortable with our ability to capture other RAF scores and our coding. But there's just still a lot of unknowns about the trickle effect and the timing of some of those scores. So we were neutral to appropriately conservative on the Medicare rates themselves. And that's why there's a little bit lower rate to volume proportion.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Sarah James of Barclays.

Sarah James

Analyst

I was hoping you could give us a little bit more color on 2022. What does guidance imply for center level contribution margin?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

It’s Barb. We don't typically or should say specifically outline our central level contribution margin. But I think it's fair to say we expect that central level contribution margin to return to normal levels in the mid-20s that we have seen historically.

Sarah James

Analyst

Okay. Maybe if you could, could you help us bucket out some of the bridge between 2021 margins and 2022. So how much is that conservatism in there for the RAF versus some of the other moving pieces that you spoke to?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

Sure. So in terms of the rates. So while I spoke of that conservatism, perhaps in the Medicare rates, the flip side to that is we did receive as we indicated, some very significant Medicaid increases. So we feel very confident about that. The biggest bridge between 21 and 22 would be that center level contribution margin that you just asked about. As we've indicated in our Q3 results, the first three quarters of the year our centers were essentially closed. And that resulted in higher-than-normal central level contribution margins because we had lower operating costs in the centers, things like outsourced transportation and maintenance and some of those types of things. So the biggest factor there is really that central level contribution margin.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Ralph Giacobbe with Citi.

Ralph Giacobbe

Analyst · Citi.

I just want to go back to the census guidance. It's a little bit lower than we had expected. I think it's at the midpoint about 11% growth. I think you talked about sort of longer term or mid-teens or even 20% type growth. I guess I understand sort of the freeze and maybe that impact and it seems like there may be something more in terms of holding back some of the census. Is there any details on that will be helpful?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst · Citi.

So Ralph, really, it relates to a couple things. Again, we factored in that freeze for Sacramento. But other than that, and then the other thing, again, we did not include any acquisitions in this guidance. And so really, we're positioning our guidance on our current run rates and our visibility to what we can see for organic growth for the business as well as factoring the de novos.

Ralph Giacobbe

Analyst · Citi.

Okay. And have you shifted any timing of the opening of the de novos? I thought there were a couple that were supposed to come on, at the end of fiscal '22, I guess that's just not the case? Or is my timing off?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst · Citi.

Your recollection is correct. And we are still working toward that. Have good visibility on one and still working toward the second one opening in that timeframe.

Ralph Giacobbe

Analyst · Citi.

Okay. But I think in the press release, it talks about fiscal 23?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst · Citi.

Yes. We've got -- and it's really very close to the end of fiscal 2020.

Ralph Giacobbe

Analyst · Citi.

Got it. Okay. All right. Fair enough. And then I guess just one more, I guess I got to go back to sort of the freeze in a moment, I guess. Is there a risk that current membership rolls off as well? And doesn't that impact the ability to enroll even when the freeze is lifted? And then, from a border perspective, how much impact does it have even just reputational if you will, in other areas that have seen this freeze?

Maureen Hewitt

Analyst · Citi.

This is Maureen. So it does impact the current census of the facility. That's number one. And as I mentioned, with adhering to regulatory and surveys, that's a risk that sometimes things can happen like this. So what's most important is that we work collaboratively with our regulators both at state and federal level, get those planning corrections in. And I want to stress that we are all -- getting all the staff are working diligently on that. To ensure that the freeze will get lifted in a timely manner, we just don't have an ability to see how long that will go or for how long it will go. As far as the risk to other centers, it's important to note that Sacramento has its own license. It's separate, for example, from San Bernardino. It's separate from other states as well. So there's crossover from that regard, as well. So hopefully, when it’s from reputation, if you do healthcare, you're going to know a long-term care, there's a risk of that and the operations and clinical teams. At InnovAge, buckle down the different plans of corrections in place, work with our compliance side of our organization to ensure that it's going to happen, make sure that all the proper staffing and documentation -- documentation is in place. And I say that twice because that's so important. When you think about your survey, not to mention the importance of caring for frail seniors, which is what we do. So it's going to get addressed. They're working on it. And when we know more information, we will disclose as we are required to do.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Matt Larew of William Blair.

Matt Larew

Analyst

So Sacramento was a de novo launched in July 2020, less than a year when the audit started. I guess is that part of the reason that maybe some of the other de novo is might be more extended? Are you taking a look at the processes you put in place to open these quality control more broadly, I guess, the fact that that had issues within a year, what do we make of that relative to your product de novo efforts?

Maureen Hewitt

Analyst

Thank you for the question. This is Maureen. So as I mentioned, this de novo, which you may recall, opened up during the pandemic July 1. And as with all new patient programs, CMS will serve a new program every year for the first three years to make sure things are in place. So that's not something that we will continue to have that type of oversight by our regulators to ensure that we're given good care and good quality. But what is in with Sacramento, certainly, we're going to have the lessons learned. And we will learn very quickly and be able to respond quickly. And we are going to ensure that working with our new de novos that any lessons learned here get applied with them as well. So we're not anticipating any stall on the new ones.

Matt Larew

Analyst

Okay. And just on the acceleration in enrollment throughout the year, I mean, enrollment in the census has been a bit below expectations for a few quarters in a row here now, and then you're guiding the 2% in the first fiscal quarter. So what are you assuming changes over the balance of the fiscal year given that, I think the Sacramento you said is built in, what are sort of the landmarks who stood out throughout the year that can help get this going.

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

So this is Barb. Let’s talk about that. Just the timing of it, there's not a significant seasonality to our business, but we do see some increases typically in the second quarter and in the fourth quarter. And it just really has to do with timing of things like open enrollment for MA. And we see a higher -- just a pickup in the spring. So we do see a little bit of seasonality. So I just didn't want to -- I didn't want to give the impression that it's flat across each quarter, we typically see a little bit of an increase over the course of the year.

Matt Larew

Analyst

Okay. And lastly on the labor side, I think, relative to last quarter, I think the rate update is incrementally positive here, especially with respect to Colorado's yet, the margin outlooks, relative to what -- I think relative to what the street was at based on your comments on 3Q is worse. And so can you give us a sense in terms of the 10% in terms of contract and temporary labor? What is that, like relative historically, what's contemplated about, you know, building that in for FY 22? And have you seen any meaningful changes in turnover, or expected wage inflation since the summer?

Maureen Hewitt

Analyst

I've been touched Barb with some turnover, the voluntary turnover rate of the company is currently or approximately 26%, which is fairly consistent with our historical, voluntary turnover rate. And as mentioned, in earlier discussions, or prior ones, this is an industry where you will see turnover and certainly, the pandemic has contributed probably to some of that. But that being said, we're very committed and we've been staffing and certainly plans around staffing and recruitment and retention across the company. Barb?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

Yes. And in terms of the cost profile, we're not saying over the top increases as it relates to market pressure or those temporary costs, We forecast according to staffing ratios. So, based on our census, we put in the cost correspondingly. So, we're building in some cost increases, but we're not seeing anything alarming.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Jamie Perse of Goldman Sachs.

Jamie Perse

Analyst

I wanted to go back to the Sacramento audit and Colorado for a moment. I think investors will naturally question what's different about your services being provided in Sacramento versus Colorado and basically the risk that you can have a similar outcome in Colorado. So maybe talk us through why Sacramento was more challenging than expected and why Colorado is different in terms of the level of covered services, providing use of specialists, some of those things that you cited that were issues in the audit.

Maureen Hewitt

Analyst

So I think they're really two different kinds of surveys that occurred, although they're both CMS surveys, they're a little different. And Sacramento, as you know is a startup, so lots of learning going on, as well. And you can also tell that the census is much lower as well, because it's a brand new program. So with that, it is really about understanding continuously trying to improve and learn and help those new teams learn to run a PACE program. So they're kind of two different things. In Colorado, that was three surveys going on, as you recall, a CMS focus survey and as well as a HCPF, health care policy and finance survey and CDPH. So they're very two different things. Also, Colorado was related, as you may recall to a complaint. So they're different. And what we can't do for you today, or what I can do for you today is to describe the differences or even the similarities, because they are really two different points in time and types of surveys that were going on. They're similar, but there's obviously differences in in the programs.

Jamie Perse

Analyst

Okay, understood. Maybe just on the external provider costs. You talked about those coming down across your fourth quarter. What do you seen so far in the first quarter view your fiscal year? And what's contemplated just generally speaking, as you think about COVID trends and non-COVID utilization, what do you kind of contemplating in your guidance for external provider costs as a percent of revenue in fiscal 22?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

Yes. So this is Barb. So I'm actually in quarter four, when you compare and this was in the prepared remarks. In Q4 compared to Q3, we actually saw a bit of an increase as the centers opened and operations returned to normal, there was a bit of a pent up demand with specialists outpatient, and that's in the prepared remarks. We see that normalizing going forward. So that was to be expected in Q4, once we opened our centers, those external provider costs were actually higher than they were a quarter-over-quarter. But we do you see that starting to normalize in this fiscal year. We believe it'll get back to normal.

Jamie Perse

Analyst

And just to clarify on that, is that something we should start to expect, early in the year, is the first quarter going to be challenged because of what's going on with COVID right now, or you expect that external provider costs to start tracking back to normal in the near term?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

We think it'll start tracking back to normal in the near term.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our next question comes from Gary Taylor of Cowen.

Gary Taylor

Analyst

Three questions for me. The first, my recollection was your Colorado revenue exposure was in the ballpark of almost 30% for the company, is the start of that survey -- the audit relate, is that related to the entire Colorado operations, so if there were some corrective action or whatever it would apply to that entire revenue base potentially.

Maureen Hewitt

Analyst

That is correct both Colorado.

Gary Taylor

Analyst

Okay. And then, this one for Barb, I think of the roughly 10 million of revenue adjustments you called out for the fiscal 4Q, how do we think about the margin contribution from that, is that just -- it was extra revenue that trued up and the bulk of that flowed down through to EBITDA, or is there offsets between the two numbers?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

So the bulk of it flows down with the exception in some of the Part D, so the bulk of it flows down. And then, the next part, I think the question will be, because we did see some increased participant expenses in the fourth quarter slightly above what we expected, we had just more investments in marketing and sales in the fourth quarter. And we had some additional substance -- some slight additional G&A in the fourth quarter. So it all doesn't translate down to the bottom line. And that's really the bridge to reconciliation of those two.

Gary Taylor

Analyst

Okay. And then last question is, I believe on the de novo losses that you're contemplating for fiscal 22, you called out 10 million expectation. It looks like that's up, a couple million dollars versus sort of previous expectations, and it looked like from your last press release, that's one that the de novos got pushed out just a little bit in terms of timing. So I don't know if there's maybe too deep in the [weeds] [ph] here. But I don't know if there's anything you can help us with just sort of thinking about has -- why there might be additional de novo costs for the next year? Or maybe you don't agree if I'm looking at the numbers the right way?

Barb Gutierrez

Analyst

No. I think you are looking at them the right way. Couple things of it’s just really the timing of it, I think the capital expenditures and trying to get those de novos up and running, the capital and the preopening losses. And as I also indicated, although, if you look, we also indicate that there's some additional de novos in the pipeline. We got two additional ones over the next one to two years. And so there'll be some startup costs related to those as well. So we are trying to accelerate that de novo pipeline and so some of those costs get pushed up just a bit.

Operator

Operator

Thank you. Our last question comes from the line of Sarah James of Barclays. Sarah James, please make sure your line is unmuted and if you're on a speakerphone lift your handset. There's no response. I’d like to turn the call back over to Maureen Hewitt for closing remarks.

Maureen Hewitt

Analyst

Thank you so much and thank you to everyone who joined the call today. We appreciate your questions, and your commitment to InnovAge and look forward to answering any additional questions you might have. Thank you.

Operator

Operator

This concludes today's conference call. Thank you for participating. You may now disconnect.