Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

So we’re prepared for that. We’ve had a lot of time to prepare. And this, the elongated process of redetermination and the sloping, will help us gather data and be able to manage that HBR in the high 89s.

Justin Lake: And just to put a bow on it, anything on update on the 3.3% net income margin target at North Star for 2024, how you view that?

Andrew Asher: Yes. Well, our target is at least $7.15 of EPS. The interplay between operating income and share buyback will sort of affect whether or not that 3.3% is the absolute number that we hit for 2024. But that is our North Star, and we’re going to keep on pushing for that. And obviously, the divestitures, as we’ve talked about, have some impact on the denominator there in terms of both the margin and the dollars. But we’re going to fight hard to deliver that, at least $7.15, even though we’ve got a pretty meaningful Medicare headwind in 2024.

Operator: And our next question today comes from Stephen Baxter at Wells Fargo.

Stephen Baxter: A couple of questions on the quarter. I wanted to ask about reserves in PYD. I think that the DCPs look good, but trying to understand the magnitude of PYD you experienced in the quarter better. For a lot of other companies, by the time we get to the fourth quarter, PYD is pretty minimal. It doesn’t seem like that was necessarily the case here. I would love to understand what drove this quarter and what business was impacted. And this might be the same answer, but wondering why we didn’t necessarily see the same typical Q4 MLR seasonality in commercial. Any color there would also be appreciated.

Andrew Asher: No, you’re right. We outperformed. That was probably the biggest contributor to our sort of overall slight outperformance on HBR, but commercial continues to be strong. And I’d chalk that up more to execution and the momentum that we’ve gained over the last, call it, 5 quarters in that Marketplace business, implementing clinical initiatives, the interplay with the value-creation office, not just for SG&A, but also for trend vendors and HBR initiatives that drive both quality and the affordability of health care. So those are some of the drivers that helped the commercial business, and we feel pretty good about that heading into 2023. We do disclose that the roll-forward tables, I think one of them is in the press release, the rest will be in the 10-K, last year.

So 2021 saw a higher favorable development of the 12/31/2020 reserves. That’s understandable with sort of the chaos of practice patterns and claims patterns during the 2020 year of COVID, but still consistent reserve methodologies and a pretty strong showing of development during 2022 off of the 12/31/2021 reserves.

Operator: And our next question today comes from A.J. Rice at Credit Suisse.

A.J. Rice: A couple of things, if I could. First, on the Marketplace. I know — I appreciate the comments about the demographics of the people you’ve seen through the open enrollment period. There’s also been some questions about what are the demographics going to be of people that reverified off of Medicaid and go on the exchanges. I know the current exchange population has very diverse health needs. Do you think those redetermined Medicaid people that end up on the exchanges will pull up the risk pool? Pull down the risk pool? How are you thinking about that, first off?