{"id":24267,"date":"2023-04-26T16:19:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-26T16:19:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/humana-raises-2023-profit\/"},"modified":"2023-04-26T16:23:20","modified_gmt":"2023-04-26T16:23:20","slug":"humana-lifts-profit-outlook","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/humana-lifts-profit-outlook\/","title":{"rendered":"Humana lifts profit outlook as medical costs drop in govt plans"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>By Khushi Mandowara and Leroy  Leo<\/p>\n<p>(Reuters) -Humana Inc raised its annual adjusted profit forecast on Wednesday after lower medical costs in the firm&#8217;s government-backed health insurance business helped it beat profit estimates for the first quarter.<\/p>\n<p>The company&#8217;s upbeat outlook contrasts the uncertainty around 2024 earnings for health insurers staring at the end of COVID-related insurance protection measures and potential declines in government payouts for some plans.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Investors have also been worried about health insurers including UnitedHealth and Elevance recording benign medical claims costs even as hospitals and medical device makers see a recovery in non-urgent procedures and routine checkups.     <\/p>\n<p>Some analysts stressed on increased investor scrutiny into whether certain one-time items were helping lower medical costs artificially.    &#8220;Investors are struggling right now with the disconnect in the commentary and in the reports,&#8221; Stephens analyst Scott Fidel told Reuters.    <\/p>\n<p>Shares of Humana were down 0.6% in choppy trade on Wednesday, while peers UnitedHealth, Elevance, Centene Corp and Cigna Group fell about 2% each.<\/p>\n<p>Humana saw memberships in the Medicare Advantage segment &#8211; its main business of government-backed health insurance for the elderly or those with certain disabilities &#8211; grow to 5.66 million as of March-end from 5.13 million a quarter earlier. <\/p>\n<p>Its adjusted benefit expense ratio, or the percentage of payout on claims compared with premiums received, fell to 85.9% in the quarter, lower than analysts&#8217; estimates of 86.47%, according Refinitiv data. <\/p>\n<p>Humana CFO Susan Diamond said the insurer saw favorable cost trends in the quarter even as hospitals reported a recovery in procedures.<\/p>\n<p>On an adjusted basis, Humana expects annual profit per share of at least $28.25, compared with its previous forecast of at least $28. For the first quarter, it reported adjusted profit of $9.38 per share, beating estimates of $9.27.<\/p>\n<p> (Reporting by Khushi Mandowara and Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/insurer-humana-lifts-profit\/signage-for-humana-inc-is-pictured-at-a-health-facility\/\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P0FV-VIEWIMAGE.jpg\" alt=\"tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P0FV-VIEWIMAGE\"><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Khushi Mandowara and Leroy Leo (Reuters) -Humana Inc raised its annual adjusted profit forecast on Wednesday after lower medical costs in the firm&#8217;s government-backed health insurance business helped it beat profit estimates for the first quarter. The company&#8217;s upbeat outlook contrasts the uncertainty around 2024 earnings for health insurers staring at the end of [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":24268,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-24267","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3P0FV-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24267","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24267"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24267\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24786,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24267\/revisions\/24786"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/24268"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24267"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24267"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24267"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}