Laboratory Corporation of America Holdings (NYSE:LH) Q4 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Adam Schechter: Yes. So again, when we gave our range, we’re — 2 things. One, for diagnostic business, 10.5% to 12.5% growth, I think is pretty extraordinary. But if you look at PAMA, we’ve included when we talk about margins, that we expect margins to be slightly to improve even with the impact of Ascension. And if you just look at fourth quarter, for example, our margins were down 30 basis points. Ascension was a negative 80 basis point hit. So you can see the impact from Ascension — for us to be able to offset that impact on margins, it’s due to the lack of PAMA being implemented this year as well as some of the benefits from the draw fees.

Operator: And our next question will come from Jack Meehan of Nephron Research.

Jack Meehan: My question is on just commercial payer negotiations. We’re coming up on the 5-year anniversary of UnitedHealth announcement. I don’t know if you want to address that directly, your national payers kind of broadly speaking but are there any notable shifts you’re seeing in the structure of your contracts? And just how do you feel about the ability to maintain price?

Adam Schechter: Yes. So obviously, we work with the payers all the time. Whether it’s a year we have a negotiation with them or not. We’re constantly in contact and working very closely with them. And we’ve seen continued pressure over the last 5 years and I think that pressure will continue but it’s not accelerating. It’s kind of very steady. And where we can get price concessions, we do — but in general, I would say that there’s continued pressure but no different than what we’ve seen in the past.

Glenn Eisenberg: Jack, just to add on that, too, is that when we think about price mix, we’ve always talked about unit pricing being a headwind but the favorability of our mix of esoteric growing faster than routine or test per Ascension. And so when you look at the growth rate that we have in vision for ’23 in our guidance, it assumes both — and mostly by favorable volume appreciation but also favorable price/mix even with unit pricing headwinds.

Jack Meehan: Got it. And I heard your commentary, Glenn, on some of the revenue pacing to start here. So a finer point you can draw on EPS, just either expectations, percentage of the full year or — just any color to help on that would be great.

Glenn Eisenberg: Yes. It’s interesting. If you go back and look to even prepandemic levels, 2023, even though we have some pluses and minuses, the trend in the earnings would come in similar. So I think that will give you roughly a good approximation. Interestingly enough, plus or minus, it comes in fairly quarter each time but you’ll see it’s a little bit different in the first quarter, a little bit lower, a little bit higher throughout the rest of the year but I think it will give you a good proxy.

Operator: Our next question will come from Erin Wright of Morgan Stanley.

Erin Wright: Great. Could you give us a little bit more of a breakdown of what you’re seeing across the different subsegments at Covance, the central lab business in terms of volume trends, RFP flow at the clinical level. And then — and then on the early development side, what’s your level also of commitment to early development business as you kind of retain that as part of your spin process here?