Centene Corporation (NYSE:CNC) Q4 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

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Sarah London: On that point, I would just note that we’re seeing increase year-over-year in retention of SEP members, which means that we’re poised to capture the benefit of that sophomore effect from that heavy growth we had in SEP last year, so that’s a really nice trend that we’ve been watching and seeing that retention grow year-over-year.

Operator: Thank you. Our next question today comes from Nathan Rich at Goldman Sachs. Please go ahead.

Nathan Rich: I’ll ask one on the Medicaid business. I wanted to–you know, it sounds like the HBR so far as redeterminations have played out has been in line with expectations. The ’24 guidance has that 50 basis point headwind that was, I think, put in place for any sort of timing mismatch as it relates to acuity. I just wanted to clarify if that’s something that you’re seeing currently, and so reiterating your expectations for ’24, you feel like what you’ve seen play out so far requires that 50 basis points, or if the timing between the rate updates and the costs you’re seeing in the underlying book, if that timing has actually been matched up better than you had anticipated.

Sarah London: I would say at a high level, we’re pretty pleased, just given the complexity of the portfolio and all of the state-by-state dynamics with the degree to which acuity and rate has matched up relative to timing. Obviously not perfect – we talk about what we saw in Q4, but across the entire portfolio, feeling pretty good about that, which is again part of why we’re still confident in that 90.1 midpoint. But maybe Drew, you can talk a little bit about risk corridors and other dynamics that we’re tracking relative to that 50 basis point buffer?

Drew Asher: Yes, so you also have to remember, we’ve got PBM savings rolling into that, and we’ve targeted that at 20 basis points, so that’s sort of a nice lever that we’ve factored into getting down to the 90.1. Then as we think about a question from earlier, ’25, 2026, we would expect to get back into the high 89s on a same mix basis. From a risk corridor standpoint, while it’s imperfect in terms of a buffer, depending on where you have trend or rate pressure, we’re still at–we’re about $1.8 billion in payback for the 2023 year, so we’re still in a pretty heavy payback position for our Medicaid risk corridors and minimum MLRs. It’s not across every state, but it’s spread across a number of states, and that is something else to think through as we think about the future rate action and matching acuity with rates.

Operator: Thank you. Ladies and gentlemen, this concludes our question and answer session. I’d like to turn the conference back over to the management team for any closing remarks.

Sarah London: Great, thanks Rocco, and thanks everyone for your time and interest this morning. We look forward to providing updates as we move deeper into 2024.

Operator: Thank you. This concludes today’s conference call. We thank you all for attending today’s presentation. You may now disconnect your lines and have a wonderful day.

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