Category Archives: Forecast

The Healthcare Economy: Three Key Takeaways that Frame Public and Private Sector Response

Posted on by • Posted in American Hospital Association (AHA), Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Consumer Price Index (CPI), Cost Management, Cost Reduction, Forecast, Health Policy, Health System, Healthcare Industry, Healthcare Market, Healthcare Price Index, Healthcare Reform, High Cost Therapies, High Deductible Health Plans, High Drug Prices, High Premiums, Highly Specialized Drugs, Hospital, Hospital Industry, Market Outlook, Market Trends, Out of Network, Out of Pocket Expenses, Prescription Drugs, Value-Based Contracting, Value-Based Healthcare • Leave a comment
The Healthcare Economy: Three Key Takeaways that Frame Public and Private Sector Response

Last week, 2 important economic reports were released that provide a retrospective and prospective assessment of the U.S. health economy:

The CBO National Health Expenditure Forecast to 2032: 

“Health care spending growth is expected to outpace that of the gross domestic product (GDP) during the coming decade, resulting in a health share of GDP that reaches 19.7% by 2032 (up from 17.3% in 2022). National health expenditures are projected to have grown 7.5% in 2023, when the COVID-19 public health emergency ended. This reflects broad increases in the use of health care, which is associated with an estimated 93.1% of the population being insured that year… During 2027–32, personal health care price inflation and growth in the use of health care services and goods contribute to projected health spending that grows at a faster rate than the rest of the economy.”

The Congressional Budget Office forecast that from 2024 to 2032:

  • National Health Expenditures will increase 52.6%: $5.048 trillion (17.6% of GDP) to $7,705 trillion (19.7% of GDP) based on average annual growth of: +5.2% in 2024 increasing to +5.6% in 2032
  • NHE/Capita will increase 45.6%: from $15,054 in 2024 to $21,927 in 2032
  • Physician services spending will increase 51.2%: from $1006.5 trillion (19.9% of NHE) to $1522.1 trillion (19.7% of total NHE)
  • Hospital spending will increase 51.6%: from $1559.6 trillion (30.9% of total NHE) in 2024 to $2366.3 trillion (30.7% of total NHE) in 2032.
  • Prescription drug spending will increase 57.1%: from 463.6 billion (9.2% of total NHE) to 728.5 billion (9.4% of total NHE)
  • The net cost of insurance will increase 62.9%: from 328.2 billion (6.5% of total NHE) to 534.7 billion (6.9% of total NHE).
  • The U.S. Population will increase 4.9%: from 334.9 million in 2024 to 351.4 million in 2032.

The Bureau of Labor Statistics CPI Report for May 2024 and Last 12 Months (May 2023-May2024): 

“The Consumer Price Index for All Urban Consumers (CPI-U) was unchanged in May on a seasonally adjusted basis, after rising 0.3% in April… Over the last 12 months, the all-items index increased 3.3% before seasonal adjustment. More than offsetting a decline in gasoline, the index for shelter rose in May, up 0.4% for the fourth consecutive month. The index for food increased 0.1% in May. … The index for all items less food and energy rose 0.2% in May, after rising 0.3 % the preceding month… The all-items index rose 3.3% for the 12 months ending May, a smaller increase than the 3.4% increase for the 12 months ending April. The all items less food and energy index rose 3.4 % over the last 12 months. The energy index increased 3.7%for the 12 months ending May. The food index increased 2.1%over the last year.

Medical care services, which represents 6.5% of the overall CPI, increased 3.1%–lower than the overall CPI. Key elements included in this category reflect wide variance: hospital and OTC prices exceeded the overall CPI while insurance, prescription drugs and physician services were lower.

  • Physicians’ services CPI (1.8% of total impact): LTM: +1.4%
  • Hospital services CPI (1.0% of total impact): LTM: +7.3%
  • Prescription drugs (.9% of total impact) LTM +2.4%
  • Over the Counter Products (.4% of total impact) LTM 5.9%
  • Health insurance (.6% of total) LTM -7.7%

Other categories of greater impact on the overall CPI than medical services are Shelter (36.1%), Commodities (18.6%), Food (13.4%), Energy (7.0%) and Transportation (6.5%).

Three key takeaways from these reports:

  • The health economy is big and getting bigger. But it’s less obvious to consumers in the prices they experience than to employers, state and federal government who fund the majority of its spending. Notably, OTC products are an exception: they’re a direct OOP expense for most consumers. To consumers, especially renters and young adults hoping to purchase homes, the escalating costs of housing have considerably more impact than health prices today but directly impact on their ability to afford coverage and services. Per Redfin, mortgage rates will hover at 6-7% through next year and rents will increase 10% or more.
  • Proportionate to National Health Expenditure growth, spending for hospitals and physician services will remain at current levels while spending for prescription drugs and health insurance will increase. That’s certain to increase attention to price controls and heighten tension between insurers and providers.
  • There’s scant evidence the value agenda aka value-based purchases, alternative payment models et al has lowered spending nor considered significant in forecasts.

The health economy is expanding above the overall rates of population growth, overall inflation and the U.S. economy. GDP.  Its long-term sustainability is in question unless monetary policies enable other industries to grow proportionately and/or taxpayers agree to pay more for its services. These data confirm its unit costs and prices are problematic.

As Campaign 2024 heats up with the economy as its key issue, promises to contain health spending, impose price controls, limit consolidation and increase competition will be prominent.

Public sector actions

will likely feature state initiatives to lower cost and spend taxpayer money more effectively.

Private sector actions

will center on employer and insurer initiatives to increase out of pocket payments for enrollees and reduce their choices of providers.

Thus, these reports paint a cautionary picture for the health economy going forward. Each sector will feel cost-containment pressure and each will claim it is responding appropriately. Some actually will.

PS: The issue of tax exemptions for not-for-profit hospitals reared itself again last week.

The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget—a conservative leaning think tank—issued a report arguing the exemption needs to be ended or cut.  In response,

the American Hospital Association issued a testy reply claiming the report’s math misleading and motivation ill-conceived.

This issue is not going away: it requires objective analysis, fresh thinking and new voices.  For a recap, see the Hospital Section below.

5 new responsibilities for the beyond-finance CFO

Posted on by • Posted in CFO, Data Analytics, Data Availability, Data Gathering, Data Integrity, Data Intelligence, Data Sharing, Data Transparency, Data-Based Decision Making, Forecast, Forecast Rolling, Future, Human Capital, Human Resources, Leadership, Responsibility, Strategic Imperative, Strategic Leadership, Strategic Plan, Strategic Target Monitoring, Talent Identification, Talent Imperative, Talent Management • Leave a comment

https://www.cfodive.com/spons/5-new-responsibilities-for-the-beyond-finance-cfo/607630/

The Urgent Need to Redefine the Office of the CFO

For years, pioneering CFOs steadily extended their duties beyond the boundaries of the traditional finance and accounting function. Over the past year, an expanding set of beyond-finance activities – including those related to environmental, social and governance (ESG) matters; human capital reporting; cybersecurity; and supply chain management – have grown in importance for most finance groups. Traditional finance and accounting responsibilities remain core requirements for CFOs, even as they augment planning, analysis, forecasting and reporting processes to thrive in the cloud-based digital era. Protiviti’s latest global survey of CFOs and finance leaders shows that CFOs are refining their new and growing roles by addressing five key areas:

Accessing new data to drive success ­– The ability of CFOs and finance groups to address their expanding priorities depends on the quality and completeness of the data they access, secure, govern and use. Even the most powerful, cutting-edge tools will deliver subpar insights without optimal data inputs. In addition, more of the data finance uses to generate forward-looking business insights is sourced from producers outside of finance group and the organization. Many of these data producers lack expertise in disclosure controls and therefore need guidance from the finance organization.

Developing long-term strategies for protecting and leveraging data – From a data-protection perspective, CFOs are refining their calculations of cyber risk while benchmarking their organization’s data security and privacy spending and allocations. From a data-leveraging perspective, finance chiefs are creating and updating roadmaps for investments in robotic process automation, business intelligence tools, AI applications, other types of advanced automation, and the cloud technology that serves as a foundational enabler for these advanced finance tools. These investments are designed to satisfy the need for real-time finance insights and analysis among a mushrooming set of internal customers.

Applying financial expertise to ESG reporting – CFOs are mobilizing their team’s financial reporting expertise to address unfolding Human Capital and ESG reporting and disclosure requirements. Leading CFOs are consummating their role in this next-generation data collection activity while ensuring that the organization lays the groundwork to maximize the business value it derives from monitoring, managing and reporting all forms of ESG-related performance metrics.

Elevating and expanding forecasting – Finance groups are overhauling forecasting and planning processes to integrate new data inputs, from new sources, so that the insights the finance organization produces are more real-time in nature and relevant to more finance customers inside and outside the organization. Traditional key performance indicators (KPIs) are being supplemented by key business indicators (KBIs) to provide sharper forecasts and viewpoints. As major new sources of political, social, technological and business volatility arise in an unsteady post-COVID era, forecasting’s value to the organization continues to soar.

Investing in long-term talent strategies – Finance groups are refining their labor model to become more flexible and gain long-term access to cutting-edge skills and innovative thinking in the face of an ongoing and persistent finance and accounting talent crunch. CFOs also are recalibrating their flexible labor models and helping other parts of the organization develop a similar approach to ensure the entire future organization can skill and scale to operate at the right size and in the right manner.

In analyst call, Clover reveals it doesn’t have the customers it said it did during IPO

Posted on by • Posted in Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Dept of Justice (DOJ), Direct Contracting, Forecast, Initial Public Offering (IPO), Investigation, Investor Relations, Medicare Advantage, Projections, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) • Leave a comment
In analyst call, Clover reveals it doesn’t have the customers it said it did during IPO
Why Clover Health Chose a SPAC, Not an IPO, to Go Public | Barron's

When it planned to go public through a SPAC merger, insurance startup Clover Health told investors that it already had 200,000 direct contracting lives under contract for 2021. But in new guidance shared on Monday, the company now plans to end the year just 70,000 to 100,000 covered lives from direct contracting. 

After telling investors that it would more than quadruple its membership base in a year, insurance startup Clover Health is cutting its projections in half.

The insurance startup now plans to end the year with between 70,000 and 100,000 covered lives from direct contracting, a new payment program launched last by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS) services last year, according to its most recent earnings report. 

Last year, when Clover announced plans to go public through a merger with a special-purpose acquisition company backed by “SPAC King” Chamath Palihapitiya, the company told investors it already had 200,000 direct contracting lives under contract for 2021, according to a slide deck.

But its projections call into question the veracity of those shared when the company was looking to go public. In fact, Kevin Fischbeck, an analyst with Bank of America, called out the discrepancy when he asked the company about estimates that it would have nearly half-a-million members covered through direct contracting by 2023.

Clover could only manage a feeble response, with CFO Joe Wagner saying it was “too early to say in future years exactly where we’re going to end up.”

It’s not the only big question that Clover faces about its future. After a scathing report from a short-seller earlier this year, the startup confirmed it had received a request for information from the Department of Justice, which it hadn’t disclosed previously. A day later, the company received notice of an investigation from the Securities and Exchange Commission.

When asked about the current status of the investigation, co-founder and CEO Vivek Garipalli said it was the company’s policy not to comment on pending inquiries.

In an unusual move, the company fielded questions from Reddit during the investor call, alongside those from analysts.

Clover is one of 53 companies selected to participate in CMS’ direct contracting programs in 2021. The value-based payment models were created under the previous administration, which would allow the startup to strike contracts with doctors who are caring for patients under the traditional Medicare program and manage their care.

Under the new administration, CMS has stopped taking applications for the new direct contracting models, which are slated to launch next year. It also paused the rollout of an alternative model that would tie payments to the population health and cost outcomes for all residents of a specific location.

In the meantime, most of Clover’s business still comes from its Medicare Advantage plans, where it has 66,300 members, an 18% increase year-over-year. It brought in $200.3 million in revenue in the first quarter, up 21%, but its net loss jumped more than 70% to $48.4 million.

The company also decreased its revenue projections from what it originally told investors last year. The startup said it expects to bring in revenue of $810 million to $830 million by the end of 2021, a decrease from its previous projections of $880 million. A small portion of that, just $20 million to $30 million, would come from direct contracting.

Anthem: No change in 2020 profit forecast

Posted on by • Posted in Financial Reporting, Forecast, Health Insurance Industry, Net Income, Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) • Leave a comment

https://www.beckershospitalreview.com/payer-issues/anthem-no-change-in-2020-profit-forecast.html?utm_medium=email

End Citizens United announces 2018 targets, will spend $35M in 2018

Anthem reaffirmed its profit guidance for 2020 as the insurer expects continued financial growth despite the COVID-19 pandemic, according to a June 9 filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission. 

Anthem officials said their full-year guidance will be greater than $21 per share. The company expects to generate about 70 percent of its adjusted earnings in the first half of the year.

Anthem reported first-quarter revenues of $29.6 billion, up from $24.7 billion in the same period a year before. Anthem ended the quarter with $1.5 billion in profits, down slightly from $1.6 billion a year prior.