What better way to get an understanding of the healthcare market than through the CEOs of the top companies themselves? Leaders across different segments, including hospitals, telehealth, managed care, home health and more, reported strong growth and activity and have a confident outlook for the final quarter of 2021.
Membership Drive
- “We ended the quarter with 715,000 members, 18,000 above the high end of our updated guidance from September 1, up 40% year-over-year. Similarly, our revenue also has outperformed coming in at $151 million, $3 million above the high end of our updated guidance from September, up 49% year-over-year.” – Amir Rubin, President and CEO of One Medical
- “We were encouraged by the ongoing strength in our employer and individual business, which has now grown by over 330,000 people this year with revenue up 7% year over year.” – Dirk McMahon, President and COO of UnitedHealth Group
Good Times Ahead?
- “As we look to the remainder of 2021, we have raised our annual earnings guidance again to reflect the strong performance of the company.” – Sam Hazen, CEO of HCA Healthcare
- “Our year-to-date results continue ahead of our expectations and as a result, for the third time this year, we are raising the midpoint of our adjusted EBITDA guidance by $100 million to reflect the continued strong year-to-date performance we have achieved and what we believe is a positive trajectory for the remainder of the year.” – Ronald A. Rittenmeyer, Executive Chariman of Tenet Healthcare
- “We are raising our full year guidance to reflect the company’s strong third quarter performance and improved outlook for the remainder of the year. We expect enterprise revenue to grow 13% to 14% from prior guidance of 6.5% to 9%… This guidance range also includes the expectation that the Base Business will grow 18.5% to 19.5%, while COVID testing is expected to be down 11% to down 6%.” – Glenn A. Eisenberg, Executive Vice President and CFO of LabCorp
- “In total, we are pleased to increase all of our guidance metrics, membership, revenue, care margin and adjusted EBITDA when compared to our prior guidance, demonstrating continuing strong execution and tailwinds we expect for the remainder of 2021.” – Bjorn Thaler, CFO of One Medical
Pandemic Pressures
- “The third quarter was the most intense period yet for us with the COVID pandemic. The Delta variant surged and drove significant demand for our services. For the quarter, COVID patients accounted for 13% of total admissions. This level compares to 3% in the second quarter, 10% in the first quarter and 11% in the fourth quarter of last year.” – Sam Hazen, CEO of HCA Healthcare
- “Despite the COVID spike in the quarter, our operations remain disciplined and focused. This performance demonstrates that we are building upon the momentum of earlier quarters and we did in fact outperform in Q3.” – Saum Sutaria, MD, CEO of Tenet Healthcare
Medicare/Medicaid Growth
- “Medicare Advantage membership has grown 745,000 this year, inclusive of plans which serve dual special needs members. We expect to add a total of over 900,000 Medicare Advantage members. The number of people served through managed Medicaid grew by more than 1 million members over last year as we began to serve people in new regions such as North Carolina, Kentucky and Indiana, and as state-based redetermination activities remained paused.” – John Rex, CFO and Executive Vice President of UnitedHealth Group
- “In Medicaid our business continues to perform well, membership increased to $14.8 million aided by continued suspension of redeterminations and the go-live of our business in North Carolina. In the marketplace with more than 90% of our membership receiving some form of subsidy, we maintain our low income focus and our commitment to providing healthcare access and affordability to our members.” – Sarah London, Vice Chairman of Centene
Health Systems Post Gains
- “Our teams provided record levels of inpatient care during the quarter, which drove revenue growth of 15% as compared to the prior year. Inpatient revenue grew 18% and outpatient revenue grew 11%.” – Sam Hazen, CEO of HCA Healthcare
- “Hospital segment performance was excellent and substantially, all of our groups exceeded our expectations in the third quarter. Margins were strong at 12.3%. Despite the COVID surge, these volumes represented just under 10% of the admissions in the quarter below levels we have seen in prior COVID spikes.” – Saum Sutaria, MD, CEO of Tenet Healthcare
- “Our strong hospital results were driven by high patient acuity, a favorable payer mix and cost control. Despite continuing external cost pressures due to the pandemic such as temporary labor rates and PPE costs, our hospital operators are partially mitigating these pressures with disciplined, real time labor management, other cost actions and a focus on growth of higher acuity, higher margin services.” – Daniel Cancelmi, CFO of Tenet Healthcare
Done Deals
- “We are very enthusiastic about the advanced patient engagement capabilities added by the acquisition of StudyKIK. Through their global network of patient communities and advanced technology platform, StudyKIK expands our ability to accelerate site start-up as well as patient enrollment engagement, helping to improve patient retention and access.” – Alistair Macdonald, CEO of Syneos
- “Revenue of $1.47 billion was up 7% over the year-ago quarter, driven in large part by strong growth in Federal and approximately $45 million of incremental revenue from the Kantar Health acquisition we completed earlier this year.” – Mark J. Erceg, Executive Vice President and CFO of Cerner Corporation
- “We are excited to further perform, innovate and grow with the addition of Iora Health, expanding our model to further serve the senior population and expanding our reach to serve members of all ages and across every stage of life.” – Amir Rubin, President and CEO of One Medical
Labor Challenges
- “And with respect to labor, again, we used whatever labor we could find to take care of record census that the company was experiencing with the Delta variant surge. So we used contract labor, overtime. Again, bonuses for our full-time staff, whatever it took to staff the patient load that we had.” – Sam Hazen, CEO of HCA Healthcare
- “The most substantial challenge in the market today is in the area of clinical staffing. Our operations supported by real-time analytics continue to mitigate these cost pressures. In turn, this allowed us to focus on better patient care with strong length of stay management and a staffing process match to acuity.” – Saum Sutaria, MD, CEO of Tenet Healthcare
Optimism Abound
- “Overall, we believe demand will return to historical trends for us, with volumes growing across most categories in the 2% to 3% zone. As part of this growth, we expect to treat COVID patients throughout 2022. We estimate that approximately 3% to 5% of our total admissions will be COVID-related.” – Sam Hazen, CEO of HCA Healthcare
- “The market for our commercial services remain strong, driven in part by the pace of innovation, new drug approvals, and the biotech funding environment. We expect Commercial Solutions performance to continue in the fourth quarter with growth again in the high teens.” – Alistair Macdonald, CEO of Syneos
