Insurer Stocks Take Hit After UnitedHealth Says Seniors Are Using More Outpatient Care

June 16

UnitedHealth Group’s stock took a nosedive on June 13 after Chief Financial Officer John Rex said elevated outpatient care utilization might push the insurer’s 2023 medical loss ratio (MLR) higher than it originally expected. Since UnitedHealth is the bellwether of the managed care sector, other insurers’ stock traded down in the wake of Rex’s comments. However, equities analysts suggested that the highly diversified UnitedHealth isn’t in any danger of taking a major earnings hit.

During the Goldman Sachs Global Healthcare Conference, Rex said UnitedHealth has seen higher levels of outpatient care activity since the first quarter of 2023, and looking at data from the second quarter, the trend doesn’t appear to be going away. He cited hip and knee replacements as well as cardiovascular care — all “very localized in [the] Medicare business” — as the areas where UnitedHealth is seeing higher utilization.

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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.