As UnitedHealth Group executives mourn the death of one of their top executives, the nation’s biggest health insurance company is bracing for this week’s reaction to another multi-billion-dollar profit for the fourth quarter.
The year ended following the December 4 shooting death of UnitedHealthcare chief executive Brian Thompson, which unleashed a barrage of scrutiny on health insurer denials of medical care and certain other business practices from social media trolls and industry critics including some in Congress who’ say they’d d like to see reforms.
The company along with most other rival health insurers, have largely remained dark with few press releases while companies including UnitedHealth have stripped executive pictures, biographies and other information from their websites.
Thompson was among several executives who ran UnitedHealth Group businesses with the title of CEO. UnitedHealth includes the health insurance company UnitedHealthcare that included Thompson as well as the Optum medical care services business and its many subsidiaries including OptumRx, one of the nation’s largest pharmacy benefit managers.
On Thursday, it will be the first time UnitedHealth executives led by CEO Andrew Witty will speak publicly since December 4 when the company was slated to hold its investor day, which was cancelled in the wake of the shooting in New York.
When UnitedHealth releases its fourth quarter and full year 2024 financial results on Thursday before the market opens, the report will almost certainly include a profit despite rising medical costs for seniors insured by its Medicare Advantage plans and expenses most UnitedHealthcare and Optum businesses endured from one of the nation’s largest cyberattacks on a U.S. company.
A cyberattack last February on the company’s Change Healthcare business triggered chaos for physicians and medical care providers across the country, paralyzing Change Healthcare’s massive billing and payment system. The attack triggered a shutdown of parts of Change Healthcare’s electronic system, leaving doctors and other providers of medical care without the ability to get insurance approval of patient services.
The total cyberattack impacts to UnitedHealth and its subsidiaries is expected to be more than $2.2 billion for all of 2024, the company has projected. A final number will be included in Thursday’s report.
But the cyberattack hasn’t prevented UnitedHealth from making billions of dollars every quarter this year. In the company’s third quarter, for example, UnitedHealth Group reported profits that eclipsed $6 billion thanks to its diversified portfolio of health insurance and medical care provider services that helped overcome costs of a cyberattack on its businesses earlier this year.
But Wall Street analysts are bracing for the continued impact of rising medical costs on UnitedHealthcare.
Like the health insurance industry more broadly and insurers like UnitedHealth that have Medicare Advantage businesses, medical care costs are up. UnitedHealthcare has more than 50 million medical care plan customers including 7.8 million people in its Medicare Advantage, which is privatized insurance coverage for seniors that has seen in uptick in costs this year.
Third quarter net income was $6.06 billion, or $6.51 per share. Analysts estimates for UnitedHealth’s fourth quarter earnings are an average of $6.72 per share, which would be up more than 9% compared to the fourth quarter of 2023. Revenues are expected to be more than $102 billion, which would be an 8% increase from the year-ago quarter.
