Quest Diagnostics Q3 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

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October 22, 2024

Key Takeaways

  • Strong Q3 performance with 8.5% total revenue growth (4.2% organic), driven by new customer wins, advanced diagnostics adoption and acquisitions.
  • Expanded footprint through completing acquisitions of LifeLabs in Canada, Allina Health outreach labs, NY physician group labs, and deals with OhioHealth and University Hospitals, totaling eight accretive acquisitions aimed at growth and returns.
  • Advanced diagnostics and consumer offerings gained traction: double-digit growth in AD Detect Alzheimer’s tests, Haystack MRD program on track for Q4 national launch, and questhealth.com revenues up over 40% with repeat customer rate rising to 30%.
  • Operational excellence driven by the Invigorate program targeting 3% annual cost savings via automation and AI; third fully automated lab now live in Lenexa and pilot specimen automation underway in Clifton.
  • Margin headwinds from hurricane disruptions (~$0.08 EPS drag), a global IT outage, wage inflation and initial LifeLabs integration costs led to a modest operating margin decline in Q3.
AI Generated. May Contain Errors.
Earnings Conference Call
Quest Diagnostics Q3 2024
00:00 / 00:00

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Operator

Welcome to the Quest Diagnostics Q3 two thousand twenty-four conference call. At the request of the company, this call is being recorded. The entire contents of the call, including the presentation and the question and answer session that will follow, are the copyrighted property of Quest Diagnostics, with all rights reserved. Any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the written consent of Quest Diagnostics is strictly prohibited. I'd now like to turn the call over to Shawn Bevec, Vice President of Investor Relations for Quest Diagnostics. Sir, please go ahead.

Shawn Bevec
Shawn Bevec
VP of Investor Relations at Quest Diagnostics

Thank you and good morning. I'm joined by Jim Davis, our Chairman, Chief Executive Officer, and President, and Sam Samad, our Chief Financial Officer. During this call, we may make forward-looking statements and will discuss non-GAAP measures. We provide a reconciliation to non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures in the tables to our earnings press release. Actual results may differ materially from those projected. Risks and uncertainties that may affect Quest Diagnostics' future results include, but are not limited to, those described in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K. For this call, references to reported EPS refer to reported diluted EPS, and references to adjusted EPS refer to adjusted diluted EPS.

Shawn Bevec
Shawn Bevec
VP of Investor Relations at Quest Diagnostics

Growth rates associated with our long-term outlook projections, including consolidated revenue growth, revenue growth from acquisitions, organic revenue growth, and adjusted earnings growth, are compound annual growth rates. Now, here is Jim Davis.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Thanks, Shawn, and good morning, everyone. Before we get into the details from the Q3, I want to recognize the Quest employees who are working hard to serve our patients and customers impacted by Hurricanes Helene and Milton, while also contending with the effects on their personal lives. I'm inspired by their commitment to our values, especially customer focus, collaboration, and care during this very difficult time. They bring to life our purpose, working together to create a healthier world, one life at a time. Now, turning to our results. We delivered a strong Q3 with total revenue growth of 8.5%, including 4.2% organic growth, driven by new customer wins and expanded business with physicians and hospitals, as well as acquisitions. During the Q3, we completed three acquisitions. We finalized our acquisition of LifeLabs, a trusted lab leader serving millions of Canadians.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

LifeLabs provides a strong foundation for us to expand in Canada, and we are excited about the growth opportunities serving a population that is growing and with more favorable demographics than in the U.S. We also completed our transaction with Allina Health, a leading nonprofit health system serving Minnesota and western Wisconsin. And at the end of the quarter, we acquired the laboratory business of three physician groups in New York. During the quarter, we also announced the plans to acquire select outreach lab assets from OhioHealth and University Hospitals, two leading nonprofit health systems in Ohio. We completed the transaction with OhioHealth just last week and expect to complete the acquisition with University Hospitals later this quarter. Our recent outreach acquisitions highlight our ability to attract top health systems seeking to evolve their lab strategies to improve access and affordability.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

They also position us to expand in geographic areas of the U.S. where the influence of health systems had previously limited our reach. We are now on track to complete eight acquisitions this year that meet our criteria for growth, profitability, and returns. Now I'll recap our strategy and discuss highlights from the Q3, and then Sam will provide detail on our financial results and talk about our updated financial guidance for twenty twenty-four. Our strategy to drive growth is focused on delivering solutions that meet the evolving needs of our core customers, physicians, hospitals, and consumers. We enable growth across our customer channels through advanced diagnostics with an intense focus on faster-growing clinical areas, including brain health and molecular genomics and oncology. In addition, acquisitions are a key growth driver, with an emphasis on accretive outreach purchases as well as other independent labs.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Our strategy also includes driving operational improvements across the business with the strategic deployment of automation and AI to improve quality, service, efficiency, and the workforce experience. Here are some updates on the progress we have made in each of these areas. In physician lab services, we delivered another quarter of high single-digit revenue growth. Our performance was driven by new customer wins and expanded business, largely due to increased utilization of our advanced diagnostics. Our acquisitions also contributed to growth within this core customer channel, and as a reminder, volumes from both hospital outreach and independent lab acquisitions originate in physician offices. We also continued to see strong volume and revenue growth within Medicare Advantage plans, where narrow network strategies direct testing to high-quality, cost-efficient options like Quest. During the quarter, we also made progress to expand into new geographies through our health plan partnerships....

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

We renewed a large national health plan agreement with Elevance Health that will extend our reach in Virginia, Georgia, Colorado, and Nevada, markets in which we had previously limited access. We also broadened our access in Virginia and Florida with our recently announced arrangements with Sentara Health Plan. In hospital lab services, we grew revenues mid-single digits, which is above historical levels. Hospitals continued to struggle to fill specialized lab positions, including histology, cytotechnology, and microbiology. In addition, the range and scope of testing being ordered is increasing as hospitals take advantage of our expanding advanced diagnostics portfolio rather than building their own in-house capability. These dynamics contributed to strong, continued demand for reference testing. Our expertise managing laboratories can help hospitals improve quality and efficiency in their core lab operations.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

During the quarter, we formed a professional lab services collaboration with a leading health system in New Jersey that includes reference testing as well as laboratory and supply chain management. Quest specializes in scaling diagnostic innovations to improve access, quality, and affordability. This ability enables us to help hospitals address the many challenges that they face, from workforce shortages, to capital constraints, to the demand for more affordable care from patients, health plans, and employers. That's why premier health systems continue to seek us out for a range of collaborations, ranging from reference testing to professional lab management to outreach acquisitions. In consumer-initiated testing, our consumer-facing platform, questhealth.com, grew total revenues more than 40%. Our repeat customer rate has grown to 30% from less than 10% two years ago, driven by demand for comprehensive health, chronic disease, and STI testing.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

During the quarter, we also introduced micronutrient blood tests to help identify vitamin and mineral deficiencies. In addition, we continue to expand our partner network with resellers and e-commerce providers. In advanced diagnostics, we drove double-digit revenue growth across several clinical areas. The growth was particularly strong in areas of brain health, especially for our AD-Detect blood-based Alzheimer's disease testing, as well as in women's health, cardiometabolic health, and autoimmune disorders. Our investments in advanced diagnostics enable us to deliver and scale innovative services that improve patient care and drive growth. In molecular genomics and oncology, we are pleased with the results to date from our Haystack MRD Early Experience Program, through which providers from many leading academic and community oncology centers have used our Haystack MRD blood test to assess cancer recurrence and treatment response for solid tumor cancers.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

We are on track to make Haystack MRD available nationally to providers in the Q4. Our growth in women's health was largely driven by prenatal and hereditary genetic testing, consistent with recent quarters. We also saw continued robust testing demand in genital tract infections, which includes several STIs. This month, we introduced a specimen self-collection option at our two thousand patient service centers that give women a fast, convenient, and discreet way to access GTI testing. In the area of autoimmune disorders, we saw strong demand for our testing solutions, which help primary care physicians comprehensively screen for autoimmune disorders in order to speed diagnosis and care by specialists. Finally, we are pleased to be selected by the CDC to be one of a handful of diagnostic service providers to support the development of laboratory tests for H5N1 avian flu and Oropouche viruses.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

We plan to introduce an H5N1 avian flu test later this month. Now, turning to operational excellence. Our Invigorate program aims to deliver 3% annual cost savings and productivity improvements, driven largely through the use of automation and AI, to improve productivity as well as service levels and quality. During the quarter, we completed the build-out of full end-to-end automation for our core routine tests at our Lenexa, Kansas, laboratory, making it the third fully automated lab in our national network. We are now piloting automated specimen accessioning in our Clifton lab, which will help increase productivity in specimen processing and improve quality. Finally, we are pleased to extend our collaboration with Hologic to include their automated cytology solution, the Hologic Genius Digital Diagnostics System, which utilizes AI to help analyze cervical cell samples. We expect the solution will help us improve quality and efficiency in cervical cancer screening.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Now, before I turn it over to Sam, I want to take a moment to recognize the decision by Congress to delay Medicare reimbursement cuts and data collection scheduled under PAMA for 2025. While we are pleased with the delay, we continue to collaborate with our trade association, ACLA, to encourage Congress to secure a permanent legislative solution that provides fair reimbursement. Now Sam will give more details on our Q3 performance and our updated guidance for twenty twenty-four. Sam?

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Thanks, Jim. In the Q3, consolidated revenues were $2.49 billion, up 8.5% versus the prior year. Consolidated organic revenues grew by 4.2%. Revenues for diagnostic information services were up 9% compared to the prior year, reflecting strong growth in our key physician and hospital channels, as well as the contribution from recently closed acquisitions. As a reminder, our acquisition of LifeLabs closed towards the end of August, and our outreach acquisition from Allina Health closed in September. Total volume, measured by the number of requisitions, increased 5.5% versus the Q3 of 2023, with acquisitions contributing 5% to total volume. The impact of weather and the CrowdStrike global IT outage in July negatively impacted volume by approximately 40 basis points in the quarter.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Total revenue per requisition was up 3.3% versus the prior year, driven primarily by an increase in the number of tests per req and favorable test mix, driven by advanced diagnostics demand, partially offset by the impact of the recent LifeLabs acquisition, which carries a lower revenue per requisition than our typical average. Unit price reimbursement was stable, consistent with our expectations. Reported operating income in the Q3 was $330 million, or 13.3% of revenues, compared to $342 million, or 14.9% of revenues last year. On an adjusted basis, operating income was $385 million, or 15.5% of revenues, compared to $380 million, or 16.6% of revenues last year.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

The increase in adjusted operating income was due to strong organic revenue growth and the impact of recent acquisitions, partially offset by the impact of weather and the CrowdStrike outage, as well as wage increases and higher performance-based compensation. We estimate the impact of weather and the IT outage on operating margin to be approximately 50 basis points. LifeLabs had a negligible impact on operating margin rates in the quarter. Reported EPS was $1.99 in the quarter, compared to $1.96 a year ago. Adjusted EPS was $2.30 versus $2.22 the prior year. We estimate the EPS impact of weather and the IT outage to be approximately $0.08 in the quarter. Cash from operations was $870 million year to date through the Q3, versus $745 million in the prior year.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

In the Q3, we issued $1.85 billion of senior notes with an average coupon of approximately 4.8%. Turning now to our updated full year 2024 guidance. Revenues are expected to be between $9.8 billion and $9.85 billion. Reported EPS expected to be in a range of $7.55 to $7.65, and adjusted EPS to be in a range of $8.85 to $8.95. Cash from operations is expected to be approximately $1.3 billion, and capital expenditures are expected to be approximately $420 million. The following are key assumptions underlying our updated guidance for you to consider. The increase in our updated revenue guidance is related to recently announced and closed acquisitions, with the majority being from LifeLabs.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

As a reminder, new acquisitions are typically break even to slightly profitable initially, with profitability expanding over several quarters. Therefore, we are not expecting a material contribution to earnings from these acquisitions in 2024, but do expect increasing profitability next year. We are projecting the disruption from Hurricane Milton to negatively impact revenues by approximately $15 million and EPS by approximately $0.08 in the Q4. Operating margin expected to be down versus the prior year due to the integration of LifeLabs and the combined impact of weather and CrowdStrike headwinds. Excluding the impact of these items, full year operating margin is expected to be up. Net interest expense expected to be approximately $200 million. Weighted average share count to be flat compared to the end of 2023.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

We have narrowed our adjusted EPS guidance and maintained the midpoint at $8.90, despite the impact of Hurricane Milton in the Q4. While we aren't prepared to provide 2025 guidance today, I'd like to share some initial considerations as you think about next year. We are reaffirming our long-term outlook from 2023 through 2026, which assumes a mid-single-digit revenue CAGR with at least 1%-2% growth from acquisitions and a high single-digit earnings CAGR with approximately 75-150 basis points of margin expansion over the three-year period. Given the eight acquisitions we expect to complete in 2024, we will exceed our 1%-2% revenue growth target from acquisitions next year....

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Excluding LifeLabs, we already expect to be towards the high end of this range due to the carryover contribution from the other acquisitions that will be completed this year. Interest expense is expected to increase next year as a result of our recent debt issuance. As I noted previously, we raised $1.85 billion of senior notes with an average coupon of approximately 4.8% in August. And in March 2025, we plan to retire $600 million of senior notes with a coupon of 3.5%. Finally, as we consider all the moving pieces heading into 2025, we expect to deliver earnings growth consistent with our long-term outlook in the high single digits. With that, I will now turn it back to Jim.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Thanks, Sam. To summarize, our business delivered strong total and organic revenue growth, driven by new customer wins and expanded business with physicians and hospitals, as well as acquisitions. We are now on track to complete eight acquisitions by year's end that meet our criteria for profitability, growth, and returns. Our growing advanced diagnostics offering and increasing health plan access position us to drive new customer business next year. Given the strength of our business and revenue from acquisitions, we are well positioned to drive accelerated revenue growth and earnings growth in 2025. And with that, we'd be happy to take your questions. Operator?

Operator

Thank you. We will now open it up to questions. At the request of the company, we ask that you please limit yourself to one question. If you have additional questions, we ask that you please fall back into the queue. To be placed in the queue, please press star one from your phone. To withdraw, press star two. Again, to ask a question, please press star one. Our first question will come from Ann Hynes of Mizuho Securities. Your line is open.

Ann Hynes
Senior Healthcare Services Equity Analyst, Managing Director at Mizuho Securities Co.

Good morning. Thank you. Thanks for all the detail on 2025. When you think about next year, how do you think the organic growth profile of the business will do? And within that, can you remind us with Haystack, is there any change in your assumptions now that you've had the asset for over a year on how you think it will do in 2025? Thanks.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. So good morning, Anne. So, you know, we just came off a very strong quarter of organic growth of 4.2%, driven by you know, good volume growth and really nice improvements in rev per rec. Those improvements in rev per rec, coming with basically price being about flat, price per test, but really nice increases in test per rec and test mix. So as we enter into 2025, you know, we would put out there at this point, you know, approximately 3%. I mean, it's hard to judge what's going to go on with utilization, but by all means, and based on some of the payer report outs, earlier in the week and last week, it appears, you know, that utilization remains strong.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

So I think, you know, an assumption of roughly 3% is solid. In terms of Haystack, you know, we've said, the dilution this year is approximately $0.20. We said that. We said the dilution going into next year would be less, and, we're still on track to achieve that.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah, with regards to Haystack, and the incremental dilution this year is $0.20, so it's a total of $0.35-$0.40 dilution, and it will improve next year. We are preparing to launch the assay in the next few months here and expect to get reimbursement as we go forward as well.

Operator

The next question-

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Upright

Operator

... From Michael Cherny of Leerink Partners. Your line is open.

Michael Cherny
Michael Cherny
Senior Managing Director, Healthcare Technology and Distribution Equity Research Analyst at Leerink Partners

Thanks so much for taking the question. Yeah, maybe if I can go back to just some of your commentary about the marketplace and your positioning. If I heard correctly, I think you had some incremental share gains from Elevance. Obviously, you have a combination of inorganic growth. As you think about, you know, building on, excuse me, Anne's question a bit relative to the organic side, how much do you feel like the, the growth profile is within your control, relative to that share pickup, relative to what you're doing on the pricing side, versus market driven? If there's any way we can break that down, that'd be great.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. So first, thanks for the question, Mike. With respect to Elevance, none of those changes take effect until the first of the year in 2025. And those changes, which are allowing us to be in network in the states of Colorado and in the states of Nevada, with expanded access in Georgia and Virginia. But again, none of those changes had any impact on our Q3 results, but we expect those, you know, to help fuel organic growth going into next year.

Michael Cherny
Michael Cherny
Senior Managing Director, Healthcare Technology and Distribution Equity Research Analyst at Leerink Partners

The next question-

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. Maybe if I add also with regards to, you know, pricing and share gains, I think that in terms of pricing, we still expect, you know, flattish to slightly improving reimbursement dynamics within our business. I think that's the expectation going forward as it is this year. So we're seeing a positive improving reimbursement dynamic. And, you know, in addition to the increased access that Jim just talked about, we're also seeing share gains as a result of the hospital outreach acquisitions that we've made, where we've gained some, you know, we've shifted share, and we've gained some good market share recently as a result of this, you know, these acquisitions.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Operator, next question, please.

Operator

The next question will come from Patrick Donnelly of Citi. Your line is open.

Patrick Donnelly
Patrick Donnelly
Managing Director, Equity Research at Citi

Hey, guys. Thank you for taking the questions. Sam, maybe one on LifeLabs. You know, nice to see that close early. But can you just talk a little bit about, you know, both the margin impact, at least in the near term there? I know obviously accretive to earnings, but just the margin impact. And then the progression on the earnings accretion as we get into next year. I know there's some accounting stuff that maybe holds it back a little bit, and then it should step up, but it would be helpful just to talk through that profile.

Patrick Donnelly
Patrick Donnelly
Managing Director, Equity Research at Citi

And then lastly, just Jim, on the M&A side, since we're on the topic, you know, what the pipeline looks like, should we expect continued smaller deals versus, obviously, what we saw with LifeLabs being a much larger one and what you're seeing there? Thank you, guys.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah, you're welcome, and good morning, Patrick. So, with regards to, I'll talk maybe briefly about operating margins first, and then I'll talk about how LifeLabs impacted us in Q3, and what the trajectory is going forward, just at a high level. We won't go into too much details in terms of the actual, you know, specifics around the deal. But, in Q3, operating margins were 15.5%. You know, I would say adjusted for weather, that was closer to 16%. We had both weather and CrowdStrike impacted us by about 50 basis points. There was a slight negative impact from LifeLabs as well in the quarter. You know, as you know, we had about five weeks worth of LifeLabs revenues in there.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

The deal is scaling up in terms of profitability. There are some adjustments at the beginning as well in terms of some accounting adjustments, as you mentioned, but really, the margin profile of the deal is expected to increase as we go forward. Now, we talked about, you know, potential $0.10-$0.15 EPS accretion from the deal in year one, and that was assuming that the year would, that the deal would close basically at the end of the year, so we'd have a full year in 2025. So, you know, the deal closed a bit early, so we still. We'll give more color on the, you know, on the Q4 call in terms of what the expectation is for 2025 specifically.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

But listen, at a high level, Patrick, I would just say that the operating margin to start will be below our overall operating margin as an enterprise. So, it's gonna be a bit dilutive in terms of operating margin rates, but accretive in terms of operating margin dollars and EPS. And, it's gonna ramp up over the next two to three years to, you know, eventually be at the level of Quest operating margins. But that's gonna take some time. So, you know, I'd say focus more on operating margin dollars and EPS accretion that we get from the deal, as opposed to the operating margin rates in the short term.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah, Patrick, in terms of your question on, the last part of your question on the funnel and the M&A pipeline. So it does remain strong and, lots of discussions going on with various health systems around the country. But what I would say now is we're in this phase of integration and digestion of the deals that we've just completed, including, you know, the lab assets of PathAI, Allina Health System, OhioHealth University Hospitals, the three, physician office labs, here in New York, and then, and then obviously, LifeLabs. So, we are hard at work at integrating these and getting the margin accretion, that we've talked about. Our appetite, you know, will continue for small outreach deals and, you know, we're always on the look for those.

Operator

The next question-

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Operator.

Operator

The next question will come from Pito Chickering of Deutsche Bank. Your line is open.

Pito Chickering
Pito Chickering
Senior Sell-Side Analyst at Deutsche Bank

Hey, good morning, guys. Can I go back to the questions on Elevance and Sentara Health on this contract you talked about earlier? I guess, why weren't you in those contracts, you know, previously? Did you have to give any pricing concessions in other states in order to go in these markets, or did you give pricing concessions to enter the states? You know, I guess, who was previously servicing those patients? It's just been a long time since we've seen sort of large managed care contract wins for you guys. So just curious, you know, where are the central labs servicing these guys, or is it simply payers pushing large labs who take share from hospital-based labs? Thanks so much.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. So with respect to Elevance, we've been in their network broadly on a national basis, except for the markets that I indicated. Colorado and Nevada, we were completely out of their network. Georgia, we had limited access to some products, but not all, and the same with Virginia. So, this is just an opening up, like many of the other large national labs that provide access to all the independent labs. So we feel great on that. Sentara, we were previously not serving. It was being served by other laboratories, and they made the decision to put us in their network. It's a great health plan, a great health system that you know is in Virginia, but the health plan actually you know goes down well below Virginia into the Carolinas and Florida.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

So we feel really, really good about that. Look, I think it represents just a commitment on behalf of these health plans to include you know, independent labs that offer great quality. It starts with great quality, great service, and really competitive pricing.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Next question, operator.

Operator

The next question will come from Brian Tanquilut of Jefferies. Your line is open.

Meghan Holtz
Meghan Holtz
Healthcare Services Equity Research at Jefferies

Good morning, guys, and congrats on the quarter. This is Meghan Holtz for Brian. Just going back to guidance, ex Hurricane Milton, core EPS guidance is up slightly, right? If I just check my math, the midpoint stays at eight ninety, but you have to add back that $0.08 for Milton, while LifeLabs should be a little less. So can you just kind of break down that EPS guidance?

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah, sure. And to talk about EPS guidance, let me talk a little bit about revenue as well, because, you know, we took up revenue, as you know, by $285 million at the midpoint. The majority of that was really M&A, and the majority of the M&A was really LifeLabs. So you know, in terms of the $285 million at the midpoint, I would say the majority really is driven by M&A, which, as we said, scales up in profitability, so, you know, little to no profitability in the initial term. To your point around EPS, we tightened the range by $0.05 on each side. The midpoint remains unchanged at $8.90. We are absorbing an $0.08 headwind from Milton in Q4.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

So yes, you are correct in the sense that, you know, EPS, excluding the impact of Milton, would have gone up, and that's driven by the strength of the organic business. We're seeing some, as you saw in Q3, great rev per rec at 3.3%. Organic rev per rec was even higher than that. We're seeing good utilization. So, you know, some of that strength is offsetting the impact of Milton. But, you know, largely kept the EPS unchanged at the midpoint.

Meghan Holtz
Meghan Holtz
Healthcare Services Equity Research at Jefferies

Thank you.

Operator

The next question will come from David Westenberg of Piper Sandler.

David Westenberg
David Westenberg
Senior Research Analyst and Managing Director at Piper Sandler

Hi, thanks for taking the question, and congrats on a good quarter. So I believe reduced pretty meaningfully. I think you're still seeing wage inflation here above historical norms. So can you just talk about some of the pushes and pulls in terms of historically low unemployment rate? You know, are there actually may be some tailwinds you're seeing with insurance and other things, maybe even you know, price increases that could help offset that? And can you talk about maybe some of the headwinds in terms of wage pressures, and how long they're expected to continue? And if we did continue to see some of this wage inflation pressure, are there any ways, other ways you can get operating leverage, say, AI, automation, et cetera? Thank you.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Dave, just real, real quick, you broke up there in the very beginning. What did you start with?

David Westenberg
David Westenberg
Senior Research Analyst and Managing Director at Piper Sandler

I started there with turnover rates being reduced. However, I still believe wage inflation is above historical norms. So can you just talk about the pushes and pulls with that? And then I think you got the rest of the question right.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Yep. Yep, we got it. Thanks.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. So as we indicated in the script, our turnover rates have come down here in 2024. So last year, they were in the low twenties, and we're now below 20%, you know, in the 18%-19% range. Some of this still depends on job category, but overall, we've seen a really nice improvement. Now, the wage inflation of three to 4%, I'd say it's slightly less than last year, but in terms of historical norms, if you want to go back to, you know, 2012 to 2019, kind of pre-COVID, I would tell you it was in the, you know, 2%-3% range. So it, it's, you know, 100 basis points higher than it historically was.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

You know, as we walk into next year, it might be a bit early to tell, but I would still think it's going to hang closer to 3%, in that range. And, you know, I think, you know, you're reading the same articles we are. The quit rate in America has certainly come down. I think unemployment is relatively stable, so I think there'll be, you know, continued, you know, tightness in the labor markets, particularly on our frontline employees. And by those employees, we mean, you know, our phlebotomists, our logistics, our specimen processors. It's actually those positions where we see, you know, a more competitive labor environment, primarily because those three types of roles, they can, you know, move from industry to industry. They don't need to stay in the lab industry.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Now, there's lots of things we're doing to continue to offset that wage inflation. We've talked a lot about the use of automation and AI in our laboratories. As we indicated in the script, we just went live with our third highly automated laboratory, full automation in our Lenexa, Kansas, operation. We've installed what we called some front-end specimen automation, sorting types of equipment in several of our laboratories, and we're getting nice use out of that. And then we continue to expand some of our automated and AI-driven platforms like the Copan microbiology platform, which continues to give us a ton of productivity across our laboratories.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah, and if I, if I just add a couple of things, David, with regards to just overall productivity and, and leverage in the P&L. As both we look in 2024 and going forward, we are seeing a couple of positive dynamics there as well, that I'm sure you're aware of. In terms of rev per rec, pricing is, you know, a modest, favorable... I, I don't mean to say that there's- it still isn't a challenging pricing environment in the health system space, but overall, we're getting flat to positive reimbursement. We're seeing test per rec continue to go up, you know, versus historically, we're seeing a nice step up in terms of test per rec, as well as test mix, which is- are both giving us a positive in terms of overall rev per rec.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Utilization, we've talked about, continues to be positive and also aided by the fact that we've gained share with some of the acquisitions that we've done. So overall, all of these would drive us to additional productivity and improved leverage as we look forward, and this year in 2024.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

... Operator, next question, please.

Operator

The next question comes from Jack Meehan of Nephron Research. Your line is open.

Jack Meehan
Equity Research Analyst at Nephron Research

Thank you. Good morning. Wanted to follow up for Sam. I had a couple of follow-ups, just trying to dig into the quarterly revenue a little bit. The first was, could you just tell me what the COVID sales were? Trying to gauge what the base was doing within the 4% organic growth. And then the second is, looks like M&A added about $100 million of sales in the quarter. How much was the initial five weeks from LifeLabs versus everything else? Could it have been, like, 50/50?

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Sure, Jack. Yeah. So, with regards to COVID, I mean, as you have noted, we've stopped really reporting COVID, and we've stopped reporting base versus total 'cause it's really become somewhat insignificant. All I would say is it was largely within our expectations in Q3. It impacted from a year-to-year, on a year-to-year basis, it impacted growth by about 50 basis points. That was the impact of COVID in terms of total impact on revenue growth. Now, with regards to M&A, I think your other question, so we grew by 8.5% in total revenues for the quarter. Organic growth was about 4.2%. So we had about a 4% contribution from M&A.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

You know, LifeLabs, over five, five weeks or so, was, you know, about 70 million, roughly, in terms of revenues in the quarter. So that should give you the sense as to the contribution of LifeLabs. Obviously, it's a significant portion of the M&A growth.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Operator, next question, please.

Operator

The next question comes from Elizabeth Anderson of Evercore. Your line is open.

Elizabeth Anderson
Elizabeth Anderson
Senior Managing Director at Evercore

Hi, guys. Thanks so much for the question. So long-term question. One, can you just confirm the DCP impact in the quarter? I know that created some unnecessary volatility, although it's neutral to EPS. And then longer term, I think what you guys were saying was, it sounds like you're saying in general that, the unit pricing, we should think of sort of as stable to slightly positive for 2025 as well. I think that's what you're saying. I just... If you could confirm that, that would be great. Thank you.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. With regards to DCP, Elizabeth, first, thanks for the question. So, you know, on a year-to-year basis, it was up, I would say, close to $10 million in the quarter itself, so it was a negative impact on operating margin in the quarter. So that should give you the detail that you want. We, you know, it's gonna ebb and flow depending on the markets, but this quarter, it was a negative impact year over year. And then, you know, with regards to pricing, I think the current view and what we've been seeing in 2024 is that, you know, if I kind of bifurcate that, health systems is definitely a net negative in terms of, you know, a challenging health systems environment, in terms of the reimbursement and pricing dynamics.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

You know, health plans, I would say modestly positive, flat to modestly positive. So overall, you know, when you put the pieces together and we've got the government business right now, we expect to be flat pricing as well, since the PAMA cuts were deferred. So overall, I'd say the expectation is flat to slightly positive, is the current view. But we'll give you more information when we give specific 2025 guidance on the Q4 call.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Operator, next question, please.

Operator

Yes, the next question is from Erin Wright of Morgan Stanley. Your line is open.

Erin Wright
Erin Wright
Senior Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley

Great, thanks. So with the hospital outreach deals and the market share gains, you've been talking about that a little bit more recently, and are there specific geographies where you're seeing that sort of halo effect around these deals? Has anything changed in terms of your strategy around kind of what you target or how you're approaching these hospital outreach deals? I guess, any way to quantify as well how much in terms of market share gains this is contributing at the moment, just from either volume or revenue perspective? Thanks.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. So the three deals we announced, Allina Health in the Minneapolis market, we closed OhioHealth in Columbus, Ohio, and University Hospitals, which we expect to close later in the quarter in Cleveland, Ohio. All three of those markets, you know, had the characteristics of the majority of independent physicians were owned by health systems, health systems, and therefore, using the labs of those health systems. So it puts us into those three marketplaces. Our share in those markets, you know, was de minimis before these acquisitions. And, you know, we will continue to look for other markets in the U.S. where we have strong payer access.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

By the way, in all those markets, you know, we were in network with, obviously, all the nationals and all the Blues plans that play in those markets. So we had strong access, but our ability, you know, to sell, given that the physicians were largely owned by the health systems, was very limited. So those are the characteristics of the markets that we look for in terms of these outreach acquisitions. We look for markets where we have strong access, which we do nationally, and we look for markets where health systems, you know, have dominated in that space, and they may be willing to get out of that market.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Operator, next question, please.

Operator

The next question comes from Stephanie Davis of Barclays. Your line is open.

Stephanie Davis
Stephanie Davis
Senior Research Analyst and Managing Director at Barclays

Hey, guys. Thank you so much for taking my question. You had in the prepared remarks some comments about volume and revenue benefits from narrower networks at the MA plans. So I was curious, given some of the challenges those clients are facing, could you see a potential for an accelerated pace of adoption for this strategy and some forward benefits in the coming few years?

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

I think all of the Medicare Advantage plans versus Medicare are going to have, by definition, more narrow networks. Medicare, as you know, is any willing provider, and if you look at, you know, the Medicare work spread across the country, the health systems generally do fairly well in that space. Again, by definition, when a life moves from a Medicare plan to a Medicare Advantage plan, most of the Medicare Advantage plans have networks that are more defined and more narrow, so you know, there's generally good things that come from that, and now, you know, going forward, the Medicare Advantage plans, yeah, they seem to be under some... They're experiencing higher utilization. That's generally good for us, but they're experiencing, you know, profit pressures on that book of business as well.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

So, you know, to the extent more of that work comes to independent labs like Quest Diagnostics, you know, it means, you know, good quality, great service, and generally lower cost. So we welcome the opportunity to, you know, work with all the Medicare Advantage plans to continue to move work from high-priced out-of-network labs to, labs like Quest Diagnostics.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Operator, next question, please.

Operator

The next question comes from Lisa Gill of J.P. Morgan. Your line is open.

Lisa Gill
Lisa Gill
Managing Director at J.P. Morgan

Hi. Thanks very much. Good morning. I just had a couple of follow-up questions on LifeLabs. So Jim, I think in your prepared remarks, you made a comment that, the demographics are more favorable in Canada. Can you maybe just help us to understand what market growth looks like in Canada? And then secondly, you talked about the margins being below the corporate average at Quest today, and that over two to three years, you'll get there. Can you give us an idea of what the margins look like today for LifeLabs?

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. So first on the demographics of Canada. So the population growth of Canada is actually significantly higher than the U.S. So it's been north of 1% for the last several years. And so that's good news for us and for all those that participate. Second is the aging of the Canadian population is also the average age of the population there is north of what it is in the U.S. And the demographics of older people you know what we see in the U.S. obviously Medicare Medicare Advantage they there's more reqs per life. They visit physicians more frequently generally higher acuity levels and so serving an older population is also beneficial to the industry to us. So that's why we like the demographics of Canada.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

There's some variation between that in Ontario and British Columbia, the two major provinces that we serve, but, in total, we think it's a great place to operate. Now, in terms of the margin, yeah, the operating margin, rate is lower, than our company average. And we expect over the next couple of years, through the synergies, that we expect to get and through sharing of ideas, best practices from us to them and them to us, you know, we expect to get the margin rate back, to close to, you know, Quest company average.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Operator, next question, please.

Operator

The next question comes from Andrew Brackmann of William Blair. Your line is open.

Andrew Brackmann
Andrew Brackmann
Research Analyst, Healthcare at William Blair

Hi, guys. Good morning. Thanks for taking the question. Jim, I wanted to go back to your comment on integration and net accretion. Can you maybe just sort of talk about how your integration efforts or tactics have evolved over the last few years? Just anything you can share, which maybe gives a little bit more comfort on keeping up this accelerated pace of deals going forward. Thank you.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. So it very much depends on the deal. I mean, let's start with LifeLabs. LifeLabs, you know, it operates in Canada. Obviously, we're here in the U.S. So there's not what I would call, you know, big synergies across. There's no. We're not shutting down any laboratories. We're not changing the phlebotomy network or the logistics network at all. What we do look for in opportunities like that is, you know, we look for procurement synergies, right? What are we buying things at? What are they buying things at? And then, you know, we're gonna take the best of the best price, and in general, that, you know, is on the Quest Diagnostics side.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Second is, you know, we benchmark their operations versus our operations, you know, in phlebotomy, you know, the draws per FTE, logistics, how many stops per person. In the laboratory, you know, we benchmark not just the overall laboratory, but the departments within the laboratory, microbiology, auto chemistry. Really what it is, it's a series of best practices shared from each side. And in some cases, we obviously learn things from them that we bring back into our operations. So that's the nature of LifeLabs. Now, with the health system deals, in general, what we're acquiring is a book of business. We're not acquiring laboratories, we're not acquiring logistics. In many cases, we take on the phlebotomists that serve that network.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

So, really, the integration is about number one, IT integration, integrating with all of their physicians, whether they're on Epic or Cerner, or whatever EMR they're on. And then second, it's about the movement of that work from the hospital lab into Quest Diagnostics. So we, you know, look for opportunities and logistics, and again, phlebotomy, to get synergies and productivity out of that. Generally, what we bring to these integrations are dedicated full-time groups of people. They fit within the regional structure of Quest. So depending on the region, we come in with a dedicated team that works the IT side, the phlebotomy side, logistics side, and the laboratory side. And as Sam said in his remarks, you know, it'll take several quarters to get these books of business up to the profitability rate that we expect.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

But it's a lot of hard work, and the team has some deep experience in doing this.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Operator, next question, please.

Operator

The next question is from Kevin Caliendo of UBS. Your line is open.

Kevin Caliendo
Kevin Caliendo
Healthcare Equity Research at UBS

Thanks. Thanks for getting my question. I appreciate it. I just want to go through some of these moving pieces. I appreciated the color that you gave on 2025, but if we just kind of think of-- tell me I'm not thinking about this incorrectly. Revenue growth should probably be better, given all the M&A that's maturing into next year. You talked about the organic growth still estimated to be up, you know, 3%, roughly. The cost trends, wages, and the like, 3%-4%, 3%, you know, hopefully Invigorate is there to offset that. Plus, you add in the benefit of the maturation of LifeLabs, which $0.10-$0.15, is probably going to be more than that, as you're getting an extra quarter than you anticipated, and you have Haystack solution coming down. Isn't it...

Kevin Caliendo
Kevin Caliendo
Healthcare Equity Research at UBS

I mean, unless I'm not thinking about the impact or there's a negative impact to core margins, shouldn't EPS grow faster next year than your traditional CAGR? Just thinking about all those moving pieces.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah, so I think you've got the moving pieces right, Kevin. As you said, we've got and as we talked about in the prepared remarks, we've got M&A, excluding LifeLabs, growing at you know the high end of the range that we've given, about 2%. We've got LifeLabs adding a full year worth of revenues in there, so that'll help revenues as well. So yes, revenue growth will be faster. We've got you know also the carryover from some of the M&A that we've done this year. I mean, in terms of the cost headwinds right now, it's, I'd say, early to say that we're going to face lesser headwinds in general, like in terms of you know inflation, for instance.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

We're still assuming in general, that 3-4%, I wouldn't say that we're assuming that that's going to moderate significantly next year. So what we're seeing today is in that 3-4% range, I think we're expecting that to be the same. You know, I think the pricing dynamics, we'll give more detail on that on the Q4 call, but in general, fairly in line with what we're seeing right now, which is flat to slightly positive. Although, as I said before, you know, we are seeing competitive dynamics in the health system space. And, you know, for now, we're saying EPS is growing at in the high single digits. So, you know, to the extent that we provide more information on the Q4 call, that's different than that, we will.

Sam Samad
Sam Samad
CFO at Quest Diagnostics

But at this point, with the visibility that we have, with all the moving pieces, you know, we feel comfortable just reaffirming that growth rate for EPS. So there isn't anything here that's a negative that we're, you know, that you're teasing out, that's not, you know, something that we're not disclosing. It's basically, we feel comfortable that with all the moving parts, that we're at the high end of the guidance range that we gave before.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Operator, next question, please.

Operator

Our last question will come from Michael Ryskin of Bank of America. Your line is open, sir.

Michael Ryskin
Michael Ryskin
Managing Director at Bank of America

Great. Thanks for squeezing me in, guys. I'll just... I'll close with one, a lot of the stuff's been covered. I want to ask a little bit on PAMA. Obviously, it's been delayed. You made some comments about the, you know, potentially working on a permanent legislative solution. Just could you expand on that a little bit, like what that could look like? Obviously, PAMA's been delayed for a number of years now, so we're kind of used to this, but, yeah. Any sense of what the future could look like there, just so we're not in a constant delay cycle again? Thanks.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Yeah. So you're right, PAMA has now been delayed five straight years, and, it is certainly a welcome relief, to us and to our entire industry. Now, having said that, look, SALSA has continued to be on the legislative agenda. You know, it's a complex task to get these things approved. There's, you know, one Senate committee, two House committees that you have to work through, and, as you know, with the election coming up, you know, a lot of these committees can potentially change. The leadership can change, members can change.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Our trade association and the members of it, you know, will be hard at work once the election is over, and once the committee memberships are defined. We'll be hard at work to figure out who on these committees are going to support us and to put forth a fix to this constant, you know, year over year, you know, I would say battle that we have to defer these cuts. You know, we were happy with the SALSA solution, which, if enacted, called for another year of a delay, followed by a new data collection process. There were agreed to reductions, but I'm not sure that's the solution we're going to put forth on the table.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

You know, we've had five straight years of cut, of delayed cuts, and while that sounds good, in fact, it's not good because we've had five really heavy years of wage inflation and other inflation, and we're going to press the case that, in fact, the Medicare rate should go up. We've gotten rates up through our commercial plans. Yes, as Sam said, there's been pressure on our hospital reference pricing, but we believe, given the, you know, inflationary environment that we've lived in from twenty-nineteen to twenty-twenty-four, that the rates need to go up. And so that's the fix that we're going to propose. We believe a new data collection process will indicate that when they benchmark our pricing across all the commercial plans, including what the commercial plans are paying hospital labs.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

I think we'll find that the combination of those prices would lead one to believe that Medicare pricing should go up. So that's what we're going to push for going forward.

Michael Ryskin
Michael Ryskin
Managing Director at Bank of America

All right.

Jim Davis
Jim Davis
Chairman, CEO and President at Quest Diagnostics

Okay, so, thank you very much for joining the call today. We appreciate your support. Have a good day, everyone.

Operator

Thank you for participating in the Quest Diagnostics Q3 two thousand twenty-four conference call. A transcript of prepared remarks on this call will be posted later today on Quest Diagnostics' website at www.questdiagnostics.com. A replay of the call may be accessed online at www.questdiagnostics.com/investor, or by phone at 800-839-5154 for domestic callers or 203-369-3358 for international callers. Telephone replays will be available from approximately 10:30 A.M. Eastern Time on October twenty-second, two thousand twenty-four, until midnight Eastern Time, November fifth, two thousand twenty-four. Thank you for your participation, and goodbye.

Executives
    • Shawn Bevec
      Shawn Bevec
      VP of Investor Relations
    • Jim Davis
      Jim Davis
      Chairman, CEO and President
    • Sam Samad
      Sam Samad
      CFO
Analysts
    • Kevin Caliendo
      Healthcare Equity Research at UBS
    • Erin Wright
      Senior Equity Research Analyst at Morgan Stanley
    • Michael Ryskin
      Managing Director at Bank of America
    • Elizabeth Anderson
      Senior Managing Director at Evercore
    • Patrick Donnelly
      Managing Director, Equity Research at Citi
    • Pito Chickering
      Senior Sell-Side Analyst at Deutsche Bank
    • Stephanie Davis
      Senior Research Analyst and Managing Director at Barclays
    • Andrew Brackmann
      Research Analyst, Healthcare at William Blair
    • Meghan Holtz
      Healthcare Services Equity Research at Jefferies
    • David Westenberg
      Senior Research Analyst and Managing Director at Piper Sandler
    • Lisa Gill
      Managing Director at J.P. Morgan
    • Michael Cherny
      Senior Managing Director, Healthcare Technology and Distribution Equity Research Analyst at Leerink Partners
    • Jack Meehan
      Equity Research Analyst at Nephron Research
    • Ann Hynes
      Senior Healthcare Services Equity Analyst, Managing Director at Mizuho Securities Co.
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