UnitedHealth Group Q1 2022 Earnings Results & Report

UnitedHealth Group EPS Results

• Actual EPS: $5.49
• Consensus EPS: $5.40
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$0.09
• One Year Ago EPS: $5.31
• EPS Beat Rate: 6 of last 8 quarters

UnitedHealth Group Revenue Results

• Actual Revenue: $80.15 billion
• Expected Revenue: $78.77 billion
• Beat/Miss: Beat by +$1.38 billion
• YoY Revenue Growth: +14.20%

UnitedHealth Group (NYSE:UNH) (NYSE: UNH) is a diversified health care company that provides health insurance coverage, health care services, pharmacy services and health technology. Its businesses serve individuals, employers, government programs, health care providers and other organizations, primarily in the United States.

The company operates through two principal businesses. UnitedHealthcare offers health benefit plans and related services for employers, individuals, families and government-sponsored programs, including Medicare and Medicaid. Optum provides a broad range of health services, including pharmacy benefit management through Optum Rx, care delivery and management through Optum Health, and data, technology and advisory solutions for health care organizations through Optum Insight.

UnitedHealth Group traces its history to 1977, when Charter Med was established in Minnesota; the company later adopted the UnitedHealth name and expanded through its insurance and health services businesses. It has grown into one of the largest health care organizations in the United States, with operations and customers spanning commercial, government and provider markets. Stephen Hemsley serves as chief executive officer, having returned to the role in 2025 after previously leading the company.

UnitedHealth Group Q1 2022 Earnings Call Transcript

Key Takeaways

• UnitedHealth Group raised its 2022 adjusted EPS outlook to $21.20–$21.70 after strong Q1 performance, reflecting broad-based growth across both Optum and UnitedHealthcare.
• OptumHealth expects to add 600,000 patients under value-based arrangements in 2022—up from its prior 500,000 target—driven by integrated home and ambulatory care models that are already reducing post-acute skilled nursing admissions by 25%.
• UnitedHealthcare’s Medicare Advantage business remains on track to serve an additional 800,000 members in 2022, while its commercial virtual-first and physician-led plans added 350,000 enrollments over the past year.
• OptumRx and pharmacy services helped lower specialty drug costs by over 15%, with OptumRx revenues up 11% in Q1 and healthy retention rates underpinning a strong sales pipeline.
• Operational initiatives—including a 38% increase in digital document adoption and a new integrated consumer card—aim to streamline provider workflows and eliminate an estimated 80 tons of paper over five years.

Presentation

[Operator]

Good morning, and welcome to the UnitedHealth Group first quarter 2022 earnings conference call. A question-and-answer session will follow UnitedHealth Group's prepared remarks, and as a reminder, this call is being recorded. Here are some important introductory information. This call contains forward-looking statements under U.S. Federal securities laws. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause the actual results to differ materially from the historical experience or present expectations. A description of some of the risks and uncertainties can be found in the reports that we file with the Securities and Exchange Commission, including the cautionary statements included in our current periodic filings. This call will also reference non-GAAP amounts. A reconciliation of the non-GAAP to the GAAP amounts available on the financial and earnings reports section of the company's investor relations page at www.unitedhealthgroup.com.

[Operator]

Information presented on this call is contained in the earnings release we issued this morning in our Form 8-K, dated April 14, 2022. Which will be accessed from the investor relations page of the company's website. I will now turn the conference over to Chief Executive Officer of UnitedHealth Group, Andrew Witty. Please go ahead.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Thank you. Good morning, and thank you all for joining us today. Coming into this quarter, we set clear objectives for the year to drive strong execution of our long-term strategy and deliver high quality, diversified growth, pursue excellence in every consumer experience and at every touch point, and apply technology to help all stakeholders to improve access, affordability, outcomes, and experiences. As our results show, we're delivering on these objectives. I would like to start this morning's call by thanking my colleagues, the 350,000 people of Optum and UnitedHealthcare. Their dedicated work gives us the confidence today to increase our 2022 adjusted earnings per share outlook to a range of $21.20-$21.70 per share.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

At our November investor conference, we described five key areas to drive our long-term 13%-16% earnings per share growth rate. In the first area, value-based care delivery, Optum Health continued its robust momentum into the first quarter, characterized by its integrated approach and high clinical quality. After a strong start to the year, we now expect to add 600,000 patients under value-based arrangements during 2022, compared to our initial estimate of 500,000. Our approach focuses on providing quality care in the setting that makes most sense for the patients we serve. Our pending combination with LHC Group will reinforce our ability to deliver care and support in the home, as well as in other ambulatory locations. Within the second growth area, health benefits, we're rapidly advancing the quality, innovation, and consumer appeal of our plan offerings and bringing value-based care to scale.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

In Medicare Advantage, our strategic balance of benefit stability and enhancements once again help to deliver strong growth. We remain well on track to serve an additional 800,000 people in 2022, consistent with the expectations we set last November. In the commercial benefits market, our innovative offerings, such as physician-led and virtual first plans, have grown to serve 350,000 more people over the past year. This underscores the consumer appeal for these high-quality, primary care-based coverage options. Nearly 90% of newly enrolled people in our individual exchange offerings selected plans with significant virtual components in the most recent open enrollment period, and nearly 30% selected a virtual first offering. You'll see us expand such offerings as we look forward to 2023.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

In our third growth area, health technology, we continue to execute on the major new health system partnerships initiated last year, including a broad relationship with SSM Health and its 11,000 providers caring for people throughout the Midwest. We are helping our health system partners alleviate administrative burdens and create an operational capacity for these organizations to focus on delivering high-quality patient care and experiences. These partnerships move far beyond traditional revenue cycle management, with both clinical and technology features becoming important. Fourth, our developing efforts in health financial services, streamlining and simplifying payments for providers, payers, and consumers while reducing friction and increasing speed and convenience. Consider our new integrated consumer card, which we introduced in January. Many people typically have separate cards for clinical care, pharmacy benefits, food assistance programs, fitness rewards programs, and more.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

We've combined these benefits into a single card, vastly simplifying the experience for consumers and providers, and we plan to do even more in the future. Finally, pharmacy services. The high cost of specialty drugs is one of the most pressing issues for our health plan partners. Drawing upon all of Optum's advanced analytical capabilities, we're collaborating with health plans to provide clinicians access to real-time medical and pharmacy analytics, which are coordinated with a patient-specific benefit plan design, enabling clinicians to determine the most effective and appropriate therapies at the point of care. Our initial results are highly positive, helping to lower specialty costs by over 15%. Overall, OptumRx's performance in the quarter, healthy retention rates, and strong sales pipeline provide a great foundation for growth.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

These efforts from expanding in-home and broad-based value-based care offerings to enhancements to Medicare Advantage to simplify how to finance care are designed to create greater value for consumers, and more broadly, have a profound impact on the lives of families and individuals in communities with all levels of need across America, which is a powerful motivation for all of us at this company each and every day. Dirk McMahon, our President and Chief Operating Officer, will now share more about these efforts. Dirk?

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

Thank you, Andrew. There is no more important aspect of the consumer experience in healthcare than convenient access to quality care. Not theoretical access, but care when and where people need it. Testing, for instance, is an area where we see significant opportunity to improve the consumer experience. It can be a burden for people to test for conditions such as colorectal cancer. As a result, too often, people just won't deal with the hassle, early stage condition, and as a result, early-stage conditions go undiagnosed, and people don't get the care they need until things get really serious, which is bad for their health and results in unnecessarily higher intensity treatments and costs in the future. Like many of you, we have observed more willingness by patients for trial and adoption of in-home testing for many types of common conditions.

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

However, it can be challenging for people to first find tests and then make sure the results get back into a doctor's workflow. Patients need to call providers for a prescription, go to disparate locations to pick up the test, and then somehow get the piece of paper with a test result into an already busy clinic operation. At UnitedHealthcare, we've introduced an integrated solution that addresses all of the tasks that need to occur sequentially for test results to get into a clinic system. This digitally enabled solution is resulting in nearly 10% increase in people obtaining necessary screening versus a multi-step process. We are expanding this vital capability to more people and making additional types of tests available as well. As many of you know, the first quarter tends to be the most impactful in setting us up for operational success for the remainder of the year.

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

The ease of that initial experience for people has a lasting impact on consumer and customer perceptions and buying decisions, not just for the next three months, but often for years to come. We thought it would be timely and helpful to provide a bit of a performance report card for the quarter. The short version, this is where we owe a great thank you to the people of Optum and UnitedHealthcare. Perhaps nowhere was this more apparent than in the onboarding of the many new people served under value-based arrangements within Optum Health. Investing in the preparation of systems and training in physicians and staff was critical in laying the groundwork to provide high-quality care for these new patients and expanding into new geographies.

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

For example, in Ohio and New York, we are observing early improvements in post-acute trends, such as skilled nursing facility admits declining 25% in just the first quarter of operation. It's a testament to the deep integration of our post-acute capabilities for transitioning patients to the most appropriate setting for their needs, as well as a patient-centric orientation of our local care delivery organizations and their vigilance on care continuity. At UnitedHealthcare, our digital investments are continuing to serve our care providers and helping advance our efforts to move to a paperless experience. In the first quarter, visits to our digital portal continued to increase while provider support calls declined about 12% from historical averages. Importantly, we have driven a 38% increase in providers using digital documents instead of paper in just this first quarter compared to last year.

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

We expect the efforts we have taken in this quarter will save 80 tons of paper over the next five years. Before handing off to John, let me turn briefly to our pending combination with Change Healthcare. By now, it should be clear we are deeply committed to helping achieve a simpler, more intelligent, and adaptive health system for patients, payers, and providers. The combination of Optum and Change Healthcare will connect and simplify core clinical, administrative, and payment processes healthcare providers and payers depend on to serve patients. Increasing efficiency and reducing friction will benefit the entire health system, resulting in lower costs and a better experience for all stakeholders. Our extended agreement with Change Healthcare reflects our firm belief in the potential benefits of this combination to improve healthcare and in our ability to successfully overcome the challenge to this merger.

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

With that, now I'll turn it over to Chief Financial Officer, John Rex.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

Thank you, Dirk, and good morning, everyone. Our first quarter 2022 performance positions us well to deliver on our full-year financial and growth objectives. Revenues grew by $10 billion or 14% to $80 billion over the year-ago first quarter, with double-digit growth at both Optum and UnitedHealthcare. This strong, diversified growth was largely organic, with balanced contributions from across both our services and benefits operating platforms. Compared to a year ago, we are adding over 1 million more people to Optum Health, supporting 30% more patients in value-based relationships, providing over 20 million more prescriptions, and serving 1.5 million more people across our health benefit offerings. I'll start by providing a little color on care patterns over the course of the quarter and then turn to our individual businesses.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

As you'd expect, there was considerable variation in care patterns due to the COVID incidence peak early in the quarter. For example, in January, we had about 40,000 COVID-related hospitalizations, the highest of any month since the onset of the pandemic. By March, these had declined to around 2,000. Overall, care in the quarter was about at baseline levels, though we observed pockets that are modestly below historical baseline, such as emergency department and pediatric visits. However, we are not assuming this is a permanent shift in consumer behavior. As it relates to potential longer-term health impacts on people due to care which was deferred during the height of the pandemic, thus far, we are not seeing the increasing acuity that many expected. For example, initial oncology-related diagnoses levels are consistent with historical averages.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

Of course, our core focus remains on getting people the care they need, and we are encouraged that critical screens are occurring at normalized levels. Moving now to business performance. Optum Health revenue grew 34% in the first quarter, and earnings from operations rose over 40%. Revenue per consumer grew 33%. This was driven primarily by the increasing number of patients served under value-based arrangements. Continued augmentation of our value-based care offerings, such as expanding digital care and our services into the home, gives us the opportunity to serve more people much more broadly and deeply, and we expect to grow strongly for years to come. Optum Insight revenue grew 13% year-over-year. The revenue backlog was $22.8 billion, growth of $2 billion or 10% over the prior year.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

Our expanding health system partnerships are contributing to this growth, and we expect the number and breadth of these partnerships to continue to grow. OptumRx revenues grew 11% to $24 billion, reflecting the strength of new business relationships secured over the course of last year. We typically incur significant investments in the early months of these expansions to assure strong performance and value for our customers. Turning to UnitedHealthcare, revenue growth of 14% was driven across the businesses. Our Medicare Advantage offerings remain on track to add up to 800,000 people. About three-quarters will be in individual and group Medicare Advantage, and the remainder in Dual Special Needs Plans. New seniors aging into Medicare are increasingly selecting Medicare Advantage based on the value it offers.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

The 5-Star quality plan performance we achieved this year enables us to enroll people in our plan offerings through the year. People served by our Medicaid offerings grew by over 150,000 in the first quarter and is now approaching 8 million. Our growth outlook for the remainder of the year continues to incorporate an expectation that states will resume eligibility redeterminations when the public health emergency lapses, resulting in modest net attrition. First quarter commercial enrollment was in line with our expectations. The decline in people served under fee-based arrangements was driven by three previously known customer transitions, which were offset by core growth.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

We see the number of people served overall increasing as we progress through 2022, driven by the strong market response to our more recently introduced innovative offerings, as well as the continued recovery in the total number of people covered by employer health benefits, which typically lags reported job growth. Our capital capacities remain strong. First quarter cash flows from operations of $5.3 billion or 1x net income were consistent with our expectations. We continue to expect full year cash flows of about $24 billion or 1.2x net income. We returned nearly $4 billion to shareholders in the quarter through dividends and share repurchases and ended the quarter with a debt to capital ratio of 38%.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

As we look toward completing both the LHC and Change combinations this year, we will continue to have ample capacities to expand upon the ways we can serve people and help them to live healthier lives. As noted earlier, based on this growth outlook, today we increased our adjusted earnings outlook to a range of $21.20-$21.70 per share. We continue to expect the seasonal pattern to be more consistent with our historical experience, with just under 50% of the full year earnings in the first half. Now I'll turn it back to Andrew.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Thank you, John. I hope that you will recognize the consistent themes that we laid out last year as our guideposts for sustainable growth. Our focus on execution and continuous improvement across our businesses is a characteristic that we're gonna sustain as we build upon this strong start to 2022. With that, operator, let's open it up for questions, one per caller, please.

[Operator]

Certainly. The floor is now open for questions.

[Operator]

At this time, if you have a question or comment, please press star one on your touchtone phone. You may remove yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. We ask you to limit yourself to one question. If you have multiple questions, we will only be answering the first question so we can respond to everyone in the queue this morning. We will now take our first question from Lisa Gill from J.P. Morgan. Please go ahead.

[Lisa Gill, Managing Director at J.P. Morgan]

Thanks very much. Good morning. John, I just wanna go back to your comments around utilization trends. You talked about hospitalization now down to 2,000 here in March, but baseline somewhat moderating back, but you talked about ER and Peds. Can you maybe just talk about the difference of what you're seeing in commercial versus government? And then secondly, it sounds like you're not really anticipating that there's still a lot of pent-up demand. Am I hearing that correctly? And how do I think about the trend as we move here towards the back half of the year?

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Lisa, thanks so much for the question. Let me ask John to respond to the first part, and then, Brian Thompson, maybe you could just speak to a little bit the demand piece and maybe Brian pick up within that any sense of acuity shifts. I think that would be helpful for the folks who are listening. John first.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

Good morning, Lisa. It's John. Yes, in the first quarter, still seeing similar trends in terms of utilization across the different categories you talked about. A little bit higher in commercial, a little bit lower in government programs, but everything's kind of trending back more to those baseline levels overall. Pointing out as you appropriately noted here, where we're still seeing some pockets here of differentiation such as inpatients and emergency department, that's been a trend we've seen, not to the point yet where we'd expect that to continue, but a continued difference that we've noted.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

Also on your comment, and Brian will go into this much more deeply, but as it relates to the potential for acuity, this is something we talked about very early on in the pandemic as people were missing treatments and how might they come back into the system. It's still something we're extremely watchful for across a lot of categories. I spoke specifically to oncology and what we were seeing in those areas. Good to see people getting their screenings. What we haven't seen, though, is this expectation we have for the incidence rates might actually come up because of mistreatments over that their earlier period. Brian, could you offer a little more commentary?

[Brian Thompson, CEO at UnitedHealthcare]

Sure. Thanks, John, and thanks for the question, Lisa. I think John summed it up nicely. As you expected, the quarter was odd in that obviously there was stronger levels of hospitalizations and infections in January, and that clearly deteriorated down to a lower level in March. Kind of a tale of two stories inside the quarter. As John alluded to, commercial a little more close to baseline, with Medicaid being the lowest and Medicare in between. When you think about service type, inpatient running slightly above baseline, but that was really a function of January and those higher hospitalizations that we saw, and really encouraged as we look at physician visits because those accelerated through the quarter, sort of offsetting and consistent with the reduction in infection levels.

[Brian Thompson, CEO at UnitedHealthcare]

On strain dynamics, maybe another thing I'll point out, clearly less severe in Omicron than what we saw in Delta. We saw hospitalizations at about half the level that we saw. Again, confirming what John said, really no signs of deferred care, and we've been watching this closely throughout the pandemic, looking at screenings, diagnosis, severity, progression, and it usually cycles through pretty quickly after we've seen large infections, within 2-3 months to get back to baselines. That's where we're at right now, leaving the quarter. Feel good about where we're at as we pace forward into the next quarter.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Great. John, Brian, thanks so much for that. Yeah, it was definitely a quarter of two parts in terms of January and then how February and March moved forward with the shift in impacts of Omicron during this quarter. I think what you've heard from both John and Brian really reflects the kind of movement back toward kind of baseline activities with one or two exceptions. Rest assured we are really watching like a hawk to see any evolving trends around acuity shifts. Obviously, that's super important from a patient welfare perspective, but so far we haven't seen very many signals of that at all. You know, it's maybe still early days. Lisa, thanks so very much for the question. Next question, please.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from A.J. Rice from Credit Suisse. Please go ahead. Your line is open.

[A.J. Rice, Managing Director at Credit Suisse]

Hi, everybody. Just thought I might ask, where obviously a lot of discussion in the broad market about, inflationary pressures. My sense is you're pretty well matched, particularly on the insurance side. I wonder if you might take a few minutes and just sort of think. I know there's a lot of different things going on in Optum. How do you feel as we enter, a period where there may be a little more inflationary pressure that you're matched, revenue versus cost? Is there any pressure points? Is there any places where it's actually helpful to you? Maybe comment on that.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

AJ, thanks so much for the question. I'll make a couple of comments then I'll maybe ask Dirk a little bit to reflect on the broader perspective, and then Brian, again, just to talk a little bit to within the UHC portfolio. I mean, generally speaking, I wanna make it super clear. You know, our focus always is to try and get the very best value proposition for our clients, members, and patients. I think at a time of inflation, that responsibility we carry really seriously.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Making sure that there are advocates really in the system to get the best deal possible for the folks who rely on us to continue to get good access to healthcare services and the care they need when they need it is something we're very focused on. We're fortunate to have some very long-term positions in place with a wide range of inputs that we rely on, which is obviously important. Brian may talk a little bit to that in a second from a UHC perspective. Whether you look at our OptumRx portfolio, where we're gonna continue to focus on getting really the lowest possible price for pharmaceuticals, or whether you look at the way in which we run our business to seek out sources of productivity to offset inflationary pressures.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

As an overall agenda, this is a time where UnitedHealth Group in all of its parts, is gonna be first and foremost doing everything it can to protect the people who rely on us from the forces of inflation. With that backdrop, maybe Dirk, you could pick up a little bit more broadly, some of the things we're doing in the company and then pass to Brian. Thanks.

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

Thanks, Andrew. Hi, A.J. First of all, we're always sensitive to the challenges that people face in healthcare, specifically from a cost perspective. You know, that's a big reason why we have a affordability agenda that's really focused on total cost of care, lowering total cost of care for people, and also telling people in these inflationary times how they get more out of their benefits that they purchase from us. You know, we've also done things we've talked before about getting really some good products in the marketplace, like our virtual products, which are, you know, 15% lower than other prevailing products in those markets. You know, as Andrew said, we're working really hard on technology to improve productivity.

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

You know, one of the things we're trying to do from a productivity standpoint is do that to enable us to make targeted investments in our people and to or otherwise pass that through in the form of premiums to folks. Those are things from a productivity standpoint that we're on. From a labor strategy standpoint, more broadly, you know, last fall as the sort of the great resignation progressed, we made some investments, targeted investments in our people. In the first quarter, we had our normal merit review cycle with raises. We're trying to make from an internal perspective, the right thing to do.

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

As we look forward in for the remainder of the year, you know, we're gonna have to continue to make targeted investments in areas like clinicians and in customer service folks where we see higher levels of attrition. That's a broad brush as to what we're doing. Brian, go ahead.

[Brian Thompson, CEO at UnitedHealthcare]

Yeah, thanks, Dirk. As you might expect, there are good disciplines in management inside UnitedHealthcare that I'm pleased with where we're at, pricing to our forward view of cost being one, including inflation. Obviously, we have some provider agreements that do offer multi-year predictability, but this is less about being insulated from the overall inflation environment and more about our responsibility to drive down that total cost, as Dirk alluded to. I'm more encouraged than ever on things like value-based care, consumer transparency to navigate the system, to get to the appropriate site of service, having the tools digitally to ensure we can enable that virtual engagement and post-acute and home innovation to really avoid those expensive hospital stays. Those are the elements that we can really drive to try to offset the overall cost.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Yeah. Brian, very well said, I think. You know that our response to inflation is innovation. Simple as that. The way in which we're gonna get the best outcome for folks who rely on us is to continue to innovate how we work inside the company to deliver greater productivity, how we deliver efficient access to the system for members and patients, how we take advantage of things like virtual care platforms, and how we truly bring to life the value of value-based care and all of the work that's going on between UnitedHealthcare and Optum. That is gonna be a tremendous aid to us in ensuring that we can manage through this on behalf of the people who rely on us. AJ, thanks so much for the question. Next question please, operator.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Scott Fidel from Stephens. Please go ahead.

[Scott Fidel, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Stephens]

Hi, thanks, and good morning. Had a question just on the LHCG acquisition and, I guess a two-parter. First, just 'cause you've conducted a portfolio review of LHCG's assets, just interested if you've made a decision yet on whether you plan to retain all of the key assets separate from home health, particularly thinking about hospice and personal care. Would just also be interested just on some of the key synergies that you're seeing as you look out to integrate LHCG into Optum's broader clinical platform, particularly when thinking about some of the more adjacent assets such as Landmark and naviHealth that you already have in the home-based care umbrella. Thanks.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Yeah. Scott, thanks so much for the question, and I'm gonna ask Wyatt Decker in a second to give a little more response on this. LHC, we're incredibly proud of coming to an agreement with the LHC board to bring together the two organizations. Obviously, it's a transaction which hasn't closed yet, so I'm not gonna go into too much detail about it, but let me say a few things. I had the great pleasure, even on Monday, actually, to spend some good time with the founders and the leadership team of LHC. Unbelievable positive culture inside the organization that's been built up by Keith and Ginger since they first founded it. Really a company with a true heart and really puts patients first and their families first.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Extraordinary impact in all of their lines of operations in how they can have a significant impact on the lives of people who very often are excluded from care. This is really about opening up access to a lot of people who that would not otherwise find easy access to the system. It's really important. I like very much all of the aspects I've seen of that organization. Look forward very much to successfully bringing it into the UnitedHealth Group portfolio. I would also say, this is where I'm gonna ask Dr. Decker to take a little bit more deeper dive, we're really moving at speed to bring together our home and community capabilities.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

If you look at what's really driving alongside our value-based strategy for the clinics, the rapid growth of our home and community offering, which has brought together the NaviHealth, Landmark, will over time align with LHC when it joins into the organization, built on our original Optum home product. It's just an extraordinary set of capabilities, and it's positioning us very well to, for example, serve the D-SNP population in a way which historically would not have been possible. That, as you've heard from John earlier, is a big piece of our growth in the first quarter. Maybe with that backdrop, I'll pass to Dr. Decker to give you a little more detail.

[Wyatt Decker, EVP and Chief Physician at UnitedHealth Group]

Yeah. Thank you, Andrew. Scott, thank you for the question. We are very excited with the combination of LHC Group. I think Andrew said it well, they have a long-standing culture since their founding in a small community in Louisiana in 1994 of commitment to serve others and help people live their healthiest lives in a home care setting. They've developed multiple capabilities which actually really nicely complement our growing home and community platform that Andrew touched on. Very excited about that. The quality of care that they provide is remarkable. It's a full 33% higher in the Stars quality ratings than the national average for home health care, just as an example. We share this commitment to quality and service. We felt a really good alignment.

[Wyatt Decker, EVP and Chief Physician at UnitedHealth Group]

Building on your question and Andrew's comments, as we weave home health care together with the more kind of complex offerings of post-acute care and complex care in the home that we've already brought into our home community platform, we see remarkable synergies, and this will continue to grow. It also begins to address the question of why has it been so hard to have home care be delivered in a value-based construct. Our vision is with these comprehensive set of offerings, stitching it together in a way that is differentiated and helps people get better healthcare outcomes. Initially, we'll help deploy them in the post-acute care setting right out of the gate. Thanks for the question.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Thanks, Dr. Decker. AJ, thanks so much for the question. I'll maybe leave you with one thought on LHC, actually. Just for your awareness, 85% of LHC providers are four-star or better rating from a quality perspective. I mean, that just tells you everything you need to know about that organization and why we want it to be part of our family. We think it's gonna bring great access, great quality, to members and families, across the country. AJ, thanks so much for the question. Next question, operator, please.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Justin Lake, Wolfe Research. Please go ahead.

[Justin Lake, Managing Director and Senior Healthcare Services Analyst at Wolfe Research]

Thanks. Good morning. I wanted to ask a question about value-based care. First, kind of with the, you know, the improvement in the outlook for, penetration there. I'm curious if you were to, you know, step back and look at the entire kind of, value-based care operation you have and think about the penetration in terms of capitation, if you could share that number with us. Meaning, you know, the total TAM there of, your physicians and their patients, how many of them are already in value-based care, and what's, you know, the potential still to come? Just, you know, given all the competition in the space, you know, I thought it's interesting, there's been some industry chatter that you made a large acquisition or might be making a large acquisition in Houston.

[Justin Lake, Managing Director and Senior Healthcare Services Analyst at Wolfe Research]

You know, can you talk about the M&A pipeline there? You know, given the competition, do you still see it as being as robust as it was, let's say, three to five years ago? Thanks.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Justin, thanks so much for the question. I'm gonna ask, in a second, I'll ask Brian just to reflect a little bit on the kind of direction of travel for value-based care. I think it's super interesting to hear the perspective from a payer perspective, because, you know, obviously, what Brian and his team are looking for is how do they deliver the very best outcome and value for the folks who rely on him. Before I go to that, a couple of things. You know, we probably, I'm not sure we need to kind of go into a ton of speculation on what the potential would be. Where I would focus on is look at the rate of growth that's going on right now.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

You know, that movement in terms of growth of Medicare Advantage that Brian's leading, 600,000 folks coming into the Optum Care value-based capitated environment under Dr. Decker's organization. We're focused on knowing that we are able to sustain that level of transfer and growth over many years to come. You know, what the ultimate ceiling is on that, I think actually is a product of our ability to continue to deliver a fantastically innovative and high-quality capability in the marketplace, and that's gonna continue to attract very large numbers of folks who want to be part of it and benefit from it. I'm a little less thoughtful about, you know, what could the ceiling be. I'm much more motivated by and excited by the way in which we're at these 500,000-600,000 rates moving across.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

You know, our ability to both move and grow and win external business as part of that agenda is gonna be the thing that we're focused on. You know, maybe with that, Brian, I'd ask you to go a little further from your perspective.

[Brian Thompson, CEO at UnitedHealthcare]

Yeah, I think, similar to what you said, for me, it's less about a number. I will say there's a lot of runway left. It's been about geographic expansion historically. Now it's much more than that. You know, we've moved into duals. It's about complex care. It's about home. So the breadth and scale is really at the core of it. UnitedHealthcare is deeply incented to continue this journey with Optum. When you think about our best retention levels, when you think about satisfaction, when you think about where we have the lowest trend that drives the best benefits, the best quality, and the best growth, all of those outcomes come when we partner with Optum. We have strong incentives to continue this, and I'm encouraged because there's still a lot of runway left.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Brian, thanks so much. Justin, just to come back to your second question around pipeline. You know, as you'd expect, we don't comment on transactions, you know, speculation. Let me just make a few general points. You saw during Q1, we successfully closed and announced the bringing of Refresh Health into the organization. Great business built by Steve Gold and his team, helping us build out our behavioral delivery capabilities within Optum Health, complements super nicely our largest behavioral health network that we already have across the country from the benefit side of the business. You know, continue to operate there. I'd say overall, our pipeline of opportunities, I actually think is probably probably as diverse as it's ever been and probably deeper than it's ever been.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

I think from a potential capital deployment capability, I think we feel pretty optimistic about that. We continue, as you see, to be extremely disciplined about ensuring of all the very many opportunities that we see, that we focus on the ones which first and foremost nestle centrally within our core strategies, those five growth areas I touched on earlier. Refresh Mental Health, a great example of that, sits right into that value-based proposition in terms of how we believe we need to bring behavioral health management alongside medical management. First off, we need to sit centrally within our strategic framework. We need to believe in the culture and the capability of the leadership teams that we're welcoming into UnitedHealth Group.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Of course, the economics have to fit with our demanding expectations to support our long-term growth ambitions of 13%-16% and also the returns that our shareholders rightly expect. That drives us forward. I feel confident about our ability to continue to deploy capital, which has always been a key element of helping us deliver long-term growth. I hope that gives you a little sense of where we stand, Justin. Maybe with that, Emma, next question.

[Operator]

Thank you. We will now take our next question from Gary Taylor from Cowen. Please go ahead.

[Gary Taylor, Managing Director and Equity Research at Cowen]

Hi, good morning. I just had a question. Now that we're thinking about, you know, Optum Health, the type of growth, Andrew, that you were just talking about, and really tens of billions of dollars of capitated risk, how do we think about the reserving? You know, if Optum Health was a standalone company, how do we think about reserving against that risk it's taking? I presume capitation from UHC is an elimination. Is all the other payer medical expense accrual just rolling through your total medical accrual, John, or is there somewhere else on the balance sheet where there's payable numbers we should be paying attention to?

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Yeah, Gary, thanks so much. Let me go straight to John to respond to that.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

Good morning, Gary, it's John. Yes, it'd be rolling through in the same place that you'd be seeing everything else in terms of how those occur. You're right in terms of how you think about eliminations with UnitedHealthcare business versus external business, which would not be eliminated, of course. All in the same place in terms of how we would be appropriately reserving for those arrangements.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Thanks so much, John. Gary, thank you very much. Emma, next question, please.

[Operator]

Thank you. We'll now take our next question from Kevin Fischbeck from Bank of America. Please go ahead.

[Kevin Fischbeck, VP, Director, and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Okay, great. Thanks. Wanted to go back to the growth in Optum Health for a minute. Can you talk a little bit about what drove that 100,000 higher number? Is that an organic number? Is that driven by deals? Is it direct contracting? Is it internally United? Is it external? You know, is there some way to kind of think about that growth, and what drove it? Then I guess just generally speaking, when you think about deals in that space, how are you thinking about multiples, either on earnings or on where, you know, you think the long-term earnings can eventually be when you move that practice to capitation? Thanks.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Kevin, could you just repeat the second part? I just lost you in the middle of that. Just-

[Kevin Fischbeck, VP, Director, and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Oh.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Could you just repeat that?

[Kevin Fischbeck, VP, Director, and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America]

Sorry. Yeah, just the second part was just about deal multiples in physician. I mean, I don't know how you think about it, whether it's on the actual earnings or whether it's on kind of a normalized earnings in five years once you move the practice entirely to capitation. I'm just trying to think about how we should think about the returns on the capital you're spending in this area.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Yeah. Okay, great. Listen, Kevin, thanks so much. I'll hand to Dr. Decker to respond to you on the first part of where that extra 100,000, taking us up to 600,000, is coming from, and it'd be good for you to hear that from him. I think in terms of, you know, how we think about how we invest in this space, you know, I'd say each one is pretty much a unique situation, right? I mean, you know, every doctor clinic, they're all different. They've all got tremendously different histories, situations, dynamics.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Obviously, we take a view within a broad piece of not just what have they achieved to date, but how alongside the rest of our capabilities can we build, you know, opportunities and value for patients and utilizers of those environments. That's what really drives our kind of economic assessment. Now, I think what you can see is the way in which we understand and seek to continue to learn how to work better and better within the value-based envelope and how we can utilize the skills of these organizations, allows us to be confident in being able to set very fairly reward people who choose to join our organization. That's what's driving our ability to be successful integrators of some phenomenal people and their teams across the country.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

I'm so pleased, you know, they stay inside the organization and you know, it's super nice to be able to see Optum Health continue to strengthen itself as a physician-led organization. I think that is really contrasting to many others out there. This is an organization led by physicians at every level of the organization, and it makes a huge difference in terms of the way the heart and soul of this place is starting to beat. I think that's what underpins a lot of our contribution and competitiveness. With that, Dr. Decker, as the physician lead of the organization, maybe you could just reflect a little bit on how you're successfully driving up that growth rate.

[Wyatt Decker, EVP and Chief Physician at UnitedHealth Group]

Sure, Andrew, happy to do it. Kevin, thanks for the question. What you're really seeing is the result of

[Wyatt Decker, EVP and Chief Physician at UnitedHealth Group]

Almost ten years of building a flywheel that now has significant momentum. We've invested in people, in technology, in data, and building out networks and deepening in our established geographies as well as going into new geographies. All of that continues to yield benefits and frankly, growth. Your question is right. Is it organic growth that added that additional 100,000? The answer is yes. We saw strong results in open enrollment, member retention, and we of course have not only four-star plans, but five-star plans that are able to enroll patients year-round. That's also true of Duals. One final point that I'll note is that we are now a third of this growth this year is in the Dual Special Needs population.

[Wyatt Decker, EVP and Chief Physician at UnitedHealth Group]

These are individuals that have difficulty accessing care, and we're able to provide care with home and community, meaning wraparound solutions in their home. It's another model that helps us grow. Thank you.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Wyatt, thank you so much. Kevin, thanks so much for the question. Much appreciated. Next question, please.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Stephen Baxter from Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

[Stephen Baxter, Director of Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities]

Yeah. Hi, thank you. Just to follow up on a previous question, I wanted to ask a little bit more directly about significantly higher interest rate environment we're currently experiencing. I was hoping you could talk a little bit about how you expect this will impact the investment portfolio over the next couple of years as your investments mature and are reinvested at higher rates. I guess also, how should we think about this as impacting the EPS growth rate you target? You know, is this potential upside or tailwind gonna be used to offset inflationary pressures elsewhere or maybe a softer economic backdrop? Or is this something you think could actually be a net tailwind to your earnings growth over the next few years? Thanks.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Stephen, thanks so much for the question. John?

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

Good morning, Stephen. Yeah, certainly anything more than 0% interest rate is going to be helpful to us overall as we move in that environment. It does take some time, as I think as you're accurately pointing out here. Maybe a few perspectives I could offer on that. Roughly 40% of our $70 billion in cash and investments is tied to floating rates. That would be the first cut you'd wanna take of that. The other 60% would be in the fixed rates environment. As you are alluding to, those will mature and be reinvested at higher rates over time. Not much of that piece would have any year one impact, call it, in terms of how one would think about it.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

Maybe just to give you a hypothetical here. Say you had a 100 basis point increase in interest rates. That would impact that 40%, or call it roughly $28 billion of cash investments that are tied to floating rates. That'd be the first place you'd see that. Put that in the zone of it's really about $28 billion that's in that component, so $280 million impact on investment income. Important to note on that, we also have about $10 billion of floating rate liabilities. Think about that swap floating rest of commercial paper. That would also have about $100 million offset to that $280. That would be the zone I'd put you in.

[John Rex, CFO at UnitedHealth Group]

You think about getting 12 months out from a first 100-basis-point increase, that would be the zone. The rest of that portfolio, the other 60%, will roll off over a period of years. Call it, think of that probably maybe $5 billion a year rolling off as those things mature, and that would be the pacing that you should expect. Thank you.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

John, thank you very much. Stephen, thanks so much for the question. Emma, next question, please.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Joshua Raskin from Nephron Research. Please go ahead.

[Joshua Raskin, Research Analyst at Nephron Research]

Thanks. Good morning. I was wondering if you could speak to the local market strategy more on the Optum side, you know, in markets like New York or Houston or maybe Houston soon. I'm specifically curious about how much of the delivery system you feel you need to employ, control, own, and how we should be thinking about sort of long-term success and growth. Is that, you know, on the delivery side? Does that-

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Again, I'm gonna ask Wyatt to go much deeper for you on this. I would say that over the decade or so that this has been developing at Optum, I think our views are probably, it's fair to say, evolved quite a bit in terms of what the right way to operate. You know, not only in terms of what might be the right blend of relationships with ourselves and the physicians. Also the role of physicians versus advanced practice clinicians and others. And also the role of what happens in a clinic-based environment versus a home-based environment. I'd say particularly over the last, I don't know, maybe the last 24 months, I think that has moved on quite a lot in terms of how we're thinking about this.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

I would just frame it, you know, I'm gonna hand right now to Wyatt, but I would just frame it maybe Josh, in those three dimensions, right? Location, kind of relationship between, and then type of clinician are, I think, evolving dynamics around which we're becoming more and more opinionated. Maybe on that, Wyatt, you could go a little deeper.

[Wyatt Decker, EVP and Chief Physician at UnitedHealth Group]

Yeah. Thanks, Andrew, and thanks Josh for the question. Andrew framed it up very accurately, and so our thinking and frankly, the practice in value-based medicine is evolving as we're able to go into the home, provide virtual care and behavioral care and comprehensive services, even to overcome things like social determinants. In markets like New York State that have primarily been fee-for-service, we do see an opportunity to move to value-based care. It's a blend of employed physicians and affiliated and contracted physicians. Increasingly, it is bringing all of the solutions that we offer within Optum, including OptumRx, and other places in the enterprise and Optum Health, to bear on helping people get the best healthcare outcomes possible, lower the total cost of care, and actually make care very convenient for healthcare consumers.

[Wyatt Decker, EVP and Chief Physician at UnitedHealth Group]

That's a differentiator in the marketplace. Thanks.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Wyatt, thanks so much. Josh, thanks for the question. Next question please, Emma.

[Operator]

We will now take our next question from Ricky Goldwasser from Morgan Stanley. Please go ahead.

[Ricky Goldwasser, Managing Director and Head of US Research at Morgan Stanley]

Yeah. Hi, good morning. OptumRx grew EBIT mid-single digits. Should we think about this as sort of a steady state baseline growth if we think about sort of Humira equivalent coming to market sometime in next year, is high single-digit EBIT growth, sort of a reasonable place for us to model on top of what we've seen sort of this quarter? Just one follow-up. I think, Dirk, you talked about in-home testing in your prepared remarks. Is this something that you're focusing on, sort of the Medicare and dual book, or is this also an offering to the commercial book? And are you working with the national labs on that strategy?

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Ricky, thanks so much for the questions. Before I go to Heather, let's tackle your second question first, and maybe I'll go to Tim Noel to comment a little bit from the perspective of the Medicare book that you were looking at in terms of the home testing opportunity and dynamic.

[Tim Noel, Medicare and Retirement Division at UnitedHealth Group]

Yeah, Ricky, Tim Noel here. Thank you very much for the question. In-home testing is certainly a huge area of focus for us. There's obviously a component of it that relates to some of the work that we do on an annual basis with respect to Stars and closing some of those gaps related to the Stars measurement methodology. But more recently, we've really been focused on reaching out to people that we know to be underdiagnosed for conditions like hep C and diabetes. In doing this, we've reached out over the last year to about 1 million members who we suspect to be underdiagnosed and offering in-home testing solutions that are then delivered by our HouseCalls partners over at Optum.

[Tim Noel, Medicare and Retirement Division at UnitedHealth Group]

These completion rates have been really promising, 35%, last year, and we'll continue to evaluate expanding this program that will do a really nice job of helping us understand where conditions are underdiagnosed and can be better treated.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Tim, thanks so much. And Dirk?

[Dirk McMahon, President and COO at UnitedHealth Group]

Yeah. Tim, no, Tim did a great job explaining. Ricky, in direct answer to your question, we have started with Medicare, and we'll move to commercial, you know, as we sort of proceed along. This is a Medicare start was what I was talking about specifically.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Excellent. Thanks so much. Now, just before I hand over to Heather to go deeper on the OptumRx piece. You know, Ricky, as you allude to, as we roll into next year, in particular, we're coming into a bit of a new cycle for pharma in a way, in terms of the biosimilar opportunities, and obviously you refer to one very significant one, really an important one. You know, it's clearly gonna be a super dynamic environment, which Heather's team is absolutely engaged in and getting ready for.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

I would just say, you know, as I look very pleased to see that acceleration of growth rate during the first quarter, and that's down to a tremendous amount of hard work in terms of developing the right product and service driving our retention and of course, win rate. You know, one of the things I keep an eye on is the number of bid opportunities that we have in front of us, right? In terms of what's coming in. It's been super interesting to see that ratchet up over the last 12 months or so. The market is activating. I don't think you'd be super surprised to hear that, given the last couple of years, but it is activating, so we're seeing more and more business come to market.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

I've been super reassured by our sustained very high retention rates. Heather now maybe can reflect a little bit on how she sees that all playing out over the next year or two. Heather.

[Heather Cianfrocco, CEO of Community and State at UnitedHealth Group]

Thank you. Thank you. Yeah, maybe I'll just build on what Andrew said. Just first, maybe, Ricky, to your question. You know, you can see our relentless focus on not just growth in the pharmacy benefit business, but also the pharmacy services and the direct to consumer. So that will continue to support our top line growth. That will support that retention and continued growth, membership growth in the PBM. But in addition, those pharmacy services become increasingly important as we look at the future, you know, in these coming years. You're right. There's

[Heather Cianfrocco, CEO of Community and State at UnitedHealth Group]

As we look, you know, long anticipated the introduction of multiple opportunities and biosimilars and other specialty services for our members, the services that we offer through our pharmacy services programs are really, I think, gonna drive not just the growth in the top line of our business, that continued push in our earnings, which as you know, committing to our guidance for this year, which, you know, you see it as a mid- to high-single digits. Then longer term, kind of, you know, moderating in the mid single digits. That's really that relentless focus on pushing the value in from the pharmacy services into our clients and into our patients and their consumers and our clients' consumers, and making sure that we continue to drive the tools and services that our clients will pay for.

[Heather Cianfrocco, CEO of Community and State at UnitedHealth Group]

Those are our clients, our external book of clients, our UnitedHealthcare client, and that's also our pharmacy services clients, like our community pharmacy clients, which really need services and offerings like, you know, our behavioral health services that really integrate a fragmented system. I'd look at the whole thing, and as we move forward, the tools like our clinical analytics, our PBM, specialty program management services that were referenced by Andrew early in our script this morning, as well as our continued push to transform using our pharmacists as the way we're really gonna grow our business.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Great. Heather, thanks so much. Ricky, thank you very much for the question. We just have time for one last question, so Emma maybe go to the last question.

[Operator]

Certainly. We will now take our final question from Steven Valiquette from Barclays. Please go ahead.

[Steven Valiquette, Managing Director and Analyst at Barclays]

Great. Thanks, and good morning. Just to tie a lot of things together that have been talked about on the call, with the $0.90 increase in EPS guidance for 2022, just wanted to ask for a little bit more color on how much of this better outlook is driven by the Optum segment in particular, versus the UHC segment, versus any other factors at the corporate level. I'm guessing it's maybe, you know, mostly driven by Optum and maybe Optum Health within that, but also what else ex Optum is maybe performing better that's worth calling out as well. Thanks.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Steven, thanks so much. I think maybe you misspoke. We increased our guidance range this year by $0.10, both at the top and the bottom of the guidance range, just to reconfirm that. Listen, that raise is essentially based on the strong performance of Q1. Good start to the year. We feel good about that. You know, while as always, there's a lot of moving parts in our world, and you know, you've heard from people like Brian in some detail about some of the dynamics of the first quarter. Actually, as it all comes together, the year's kind of shaping up pretty much in line with the expectations we were laying out to you all in November last year.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Strong performance is supported by execution across all of our businesses. I would say, you know, all of the core businesses of Optum, of UnitedHealthcare have started the year well. We continue to be very focused on the execution of those within those businesses, of course. I think what you're continuing to see, and I hope you've heard some of that in the conversation today, and it's certainly reflecting through the results, is the synergy opportunities which are coming to life between the two organizations. You heard a lot about value-based care. Now, that whole value-based care model, which we believe is truly capable of transforming experiences, not just for patients, but for physicians and payers, that's a product of the two organizations working together. The development of in-home care, same thing.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

Very much being led by the two organizations working together. Increasingly what we're seeing as we strengthen our capabilities in areas like that with our deployment of capital and some of the acquisitions we've been making, so for example, organizations like NaviHealth, Landmark Health, and others, that's then driving strong external growth as well. Really demonstrating how building these kind of fundamental innovations in the way in which care can be thought about can then not just be attractive to UnitedHealthcare, of course, but also to many other payers, and completely reinforces our deep commitment to be a multi-payer organization, building products and services in Optum, which work not just for UHC, but for payers across the spectrum. That's what you're seeing supporting the business, and it supports our confidence in raising the outlook for the rest of this year.

[Andrew Witty, CEO at UnitedHealth Group]

I hope that gives you a clear sense of that and very much appreciate that final question, Steven. Thank you to everybody else for joining the call this morning. We truly appreciate your interest and your attention. I hope what you heard in the call today is a strong sense of the confidence in our long-term strategy, and as I just said again, an intensely disciplined focus in its execution. We're aiming to create value for consumers, advancing our mission and delivering high quality, diversified growth in this quarter and for many years to come. We look forward to sharing that progress with you again when we next talk in July. Thank you so much, and appreciate your attention today.

[Operator]

Ladies and gentlemen, that will conclude today's conference. You may now all disconnect.

Participants

Executives

• Andrew Witty, CEO
• Dirk McMahon, President and COO
• Heather Cianfrocco, CEO of Community and State
• John Rex, CFO
• Tim Noel, Medicare and Retirement Division
• Wyatt Decker, EVP and Chief Physician

Analysts

• A.J. Rice, Managing Director at Credit Suisse
• Brian Thompson, CEO at UnitedHealthcare
• Gary Taylor, Managing Director and Equity Research at Cowen
• Joshua Raskin, Research Analyst at Nephron Research
• Justin Lake, Managing Director and Senior Healthcare Services Analyst at Wolfe Research
• Kevin Fischbeck, VP, Director, and Senior Equity Research Analyst at Bank of America
• Lisa Gill, Managing Director at J.P. Morgan
• Ricky Goldwasser, Managing Director and Head of US Research at Morgan Stanley
• Scott Fidel, Managing Director and Senior Research Analyst at Stephens
• Stephen Baxter, Director of Senior Equity Research Analyst at Wells Fargo Securities
• Steven Valiquette, Managing Director and Analyst at Barclays