Updated at 9:15 am EST
UnitedHealth Group (UNH) – Get Free Report posted better-than-expected fourth quarter earnings Friday, powered once more by double-digit revenue gains from its Optum division, and confirmed its full-year profit forecasts.
UnitedHealth said adjusted profits for the three months led to September got here in at $5.34 a share, up 19% from the identical period last yr and 17 cents ahead of the Wall Street consensus forecast.
Group revenues, UnitedHealth said, rose 12.3% to $82.8 billion, again topping analysts’ estimates of an $82.6 billion tally, while Optum revenue rose 16.5% to $47.9 billion.
UnitedHealth’s medical cost ratio, meanwhile, was pegged nearly 100 basis points lower at 82.8%, suggesting a smaller portion of its collected premiums were paid out on insurance claims.
“We expect the efforts by the people of our company that led to strong performance in 2022 will define 2023 as well, especially delivering balanced growth enterprise-wide, improving support for consumers and care providers, and investing to make high-quality care simpler, more accessible and inexpensive for everybody,” said CEO Andrew Witty.
UnitedHealth shares, a Dow component, were marked 1.1% lower in pre-market trading immediately following the earnings release to point a gap bell price of $490.25 each.
Late last yr, Witty told investors that while Covid pressures within the group’s business were easing, inflation pressures, capability constraints and a good labor market were affecting “different parts of the (health care) system at different moments.
“So, I believe this whole issue has turn into actually more complicated in some ways because there’s more influences on what it is advisable to think through going forward,” Witty said, because the group lowered its forecast for 2023 adjusted profits between $24.40 to $24.90 per share, with overall revenues within the region of $357 billion to $360 billion.