For Humana, Solid Start to 2024 Can’t Mask Looming 2025 Troubles

Apr 26
Apr 26, 2024

Although Humana Inc. beat Wall Street’s expectations with its first-quarter 2024 earnings per share (EPS), the recently finalized 2025 Medicare Advantage and Part D rate notice nonetheless cast a shadow over the insurer’s longer-term financial projections and thus dimmed analysts’ enthusiasm.

In fact, Humana withdrew its 2025 EPS guidance of $6 to $10, with CEO Bruce Broussard partially blaming the move on the “significant difference between the final rate notice and our previous funding assumption.”

When CMS on April 1 released its final rate projection for MA and Part D plans, the agency said it anticipates plans will see a net revenue increase of 3.70% next year. But that figure did not improve compared to the projected rate increase — despite the industry’s urging — and it represents a 0.16% payment decrease excluding the assumption that MA risk scores will increase by an average of 3.86%. 
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Leslie Small

Leslie has been working in journalism since 2009 and reporting on the health care industry since 2014. She has covered the many ups and downs of the Affordable Care Act exchanges, the failed health insurer mega-mergers, and hundreds of other storylines spanning subjects such as Medicaid managed care, Medicare Advantage, employer-sponsored insurance, and prescription drug coverage. As the managing editor of Health Plan Weekly and Radar on Drug Benefits, she writes and edits for both publications while overseeing a small team of reporters who also focus on the managed care sector. Before joining AIS Health, she was a senior editor for the e-newsletter Fierce Health Payer, and she started her career as a copy editor at multiple local newspapers. She graduated with a dual degree in journalism and political science from Penn State University.