Humana, UnitedHealth Utilization Disclosures Put MA Powerhouses in Hot Seat

June 23

Not long after UnitedHealth Group sparked an insurer-stock selloff by revealing that it is seeing higher-than-usual outpatient care utilization, Humana Inc. disclosed that it, too, is seeing elevated medical costs due to an increased use of services.

“At this point it appears that there may be a new trend brewing with a rise in utilization and claims, particularly in the Medicare Advantage segment,” A.M. Best Senior Director Sally Rosen remarked in a new video released by the insurance-focused credit rating firm.

And that’s significant for the managed care industry writ large, Rosen tells AIS Health, a division of MMIT. “Medicare Advantage comprised more than one-third of the industry’s underwriting income in 2022, and while the dollar amount has fluctuated, the percentage of underwriting income coming from Medicare Advantage has made up about one third for each of the past three years,” she says.

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Health Plan Weekly

Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.