Molina Healthcare reports strong year despite fourth-quarter slump

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Molina Healthcare turned in a strong performance for 2022 despite its fourth-quarter profits plummeting.

The health insurer on Thursday said fourth-quarter net income fell 46% to $56 million, or 96 cents a share, compared with $103 million, or $1.74 a share, in the year-ago period. Revenue for the quarter rose to $8.22 billion, from $7.41 billion.

Net income for the year grew 20% to $792 million, or $13.55 a share, compared with $659 million, or $11.25 a share, in 2021. Annual revenue increased to $31.97 billion, from $27.77 billion.

The Long Beach, California-based company is preparing for a loss of Medicaid members due to redeterminations.

Molina ended the year with 4.7 million members in its flagship Medicaid business. But the looming Medicaid redetermination process beginning April 1, when states can start disenrolling ineligible people from the program, could cause the company to lose 300,000 members, Chief Financial Officer Mark Keim told investors on an earnings call. 

Still, the company expects its Medicaid population to remain steady at 4.7 million members following recent and upcoming expansions into other markets nationwide. 

President and CEO Joseph Zubretsky said he couldn’t forecast how many members who no longer would qualify for Medicaid would move onto its exchange plans, which is the company’s smallest line of business, following redeterminations. The company aims to transition previous Medicaid enrollees to state marketplace coverage and is conducting member outreach, he said during the call. 

“Because this is uncharted waters–it’s just never been done before–we chose not to create a model and forecast it but consider it as [an] upside to our membership growth,” Zubretsky said.

Earlier this week, Centene estimated its marketplace products will gain 200,000 and 300,000 members during redeterminations.

Molina expects its Medicare membership to grow to 175,000 while its marketplace membership shrinks to 230,000 members by year’s end. The company offers managed care services under Medicaid and Medicare and through the marketplace programs to nearly 5.3 million members across 19 states. 

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