Privia Health Group NASDAQ: PRVA reported a strong first quarter, with executives pointing to double-digit provider growth, a larger value-based care population and margin expansion as signs that the company’s operating model continues to scale.
Chief Executive Officer Parth Mehrotra said Privia “delivered a strong first quarter” and continued to execute across its markets. The company ended the quarter with 5,535 implemented providers, up 13.6% from a year earlier, and 1.6 million value-based attributed lives, an increase of 26.5% year over year.
Mehrotra said provider growth, attribution growth and value-based care performance helped drive practice collections up 14.6% from the prior-year quarter. Adjusted EBITDA rose 36.3% to $36.7 million, while adjusted EBITDA margin as a percentage of care margin expanded 290 basis points to 28.5%.
Provider Growth and Value-Based Care Drive First-Quarter Results
Chief Financial Officer David Mountcastle said implemented providers increased by 155 sequentially from year-end 2025. Practice collections reached $914.8 million in the quarter, supported by provider growth, “solid value-based performance” and ambulatory utilization trends.
Privia ended the quarter with $419.5 million in cash and no debt, after what Mountcastle described as typical first-quarter cash outflows related to value-based care payments to providers and employee bonuses.
The company’s national footprint now spans 24 states and the District of Columbia. Mehrotra said Privia’s 5,535 implemented providers care for more than 5.9 million patients, and he highlighted continued high gross provider retention and strong patient net promoter scores across the company’s markets.
Privia’s value-based platform now serves more than 1.6 million patients through over 130 commercial and government contracts. Mehrotra said commercial attributed lives increased more than 17% year over year to 913,000, while lives attributed to CMS Medicare programs rose 62%. Medicare Advantage attribution increased 20%, and Medicaid attribution rose 36% from a year earlier.
Guidance Mostly Reiterated, Attributed Lives Outlook Raised
Despite the strong first-quarter performance, Privia largely maintained its full-year 2026 guidance. Executives said the company raised only its year-end attributed lives guidance range, citing strong attribution growth in the first quarter.
Mountcastle said the guidance implies adjusted EBITDA growth of approximately 20% at the $150 million midpoint. He also said Privia expects to convert about 80% of full-year EBITDA to free cash flow as it becomes a full cash taxpayer.
When asked by Truist Securities analyst Jailendra Singh why Privia was not raising more of its outlook, Mehrotra said it was still early in the year and noted that the company had issued guidance only about 50 business days earlier. “Our approach is, you know, just keep executing every quarter,” he said. Mehrotra added that if current trends continue, shared savings should grow year over year, though he said the company would wait for more data before adjusting guidance.
Executives Discuss Medicare Advantage, Commercial Risk and Medicaid
During the question-and-answer session, Mehrotra said Privia remains focused on its Medicare Advantage book and now has more than 550,000 attributed lives across MSSP and Medicare Advantage. He said the company continues to prefer shared-risk arrangements over full capitation, though some of its book will remain capitated.
“As long as our doctors get rewarded for taking risk, we will take more risk,” Mehrotra said, while emphasizing that contracting varies by geography and risk pool.
On commercial value-based care, Mehrotra said Privia is one of the few organizations able to offer commercial value-based arrangements at scale because of its dense, low-cost medical group structure. He said payers compensate Privia through care management per-member-per-month payments, quality-based bonuses and shared savings when the company helps bend the medical loss ratio cost curve.
Mehrotra said Privia is cautious about taking significant risk in commercial products because they are open-access and patients can seek care elsewhere, especially for specialty events. On Medicaid, he said all current arrangements shown in the company’s materials are upside-only, adding that Privia does not expect to take downside risk in Medicaid unless there is a unique opportunity.
Acquisition Pipeline and Evolent Integration Remain in Focus
Mehrotra said Privia’s business development pipeline is strong, with opportunities across service entities, technology platforms, accountable care organizations, medical groups and tax identification numbers. He said the company’s strong balance sheet and free cash flow profile could be advantageous as venture capital and private equity activity in the sector moderates.
Asked about the integration of assets acquired from Evolent, Mehrotra said the process is going well and is ahead of schedule. He said the team and technology stack are largely integrated, and the acquired business includes core MSSP and some commercial lives. However, he noted that cross-selling the full Privia platform to those practices will take time, with typical sales cycles of three to six months.
Mountcastle also said Privia repurchased minority interests in some markets during the quarter for $11 million, a move he said is expected to improve cash flow and net income.
Technology, AI and Margin Expansion
Mehrotra discussed Privia’s technology strategy following the appointment of a new chief technology officer, Konda, who joined from OptumInsights. He said the company is looking to implement artificial intelligence across three broad areas: corporate functions, care center operations and care delivery.
Examples cited included prior authorization, autonomous coding, referral management, care gap closure, chart preparation, patient scheduling, automated outreach, self-service tools, clinical decision support and identification of suspected medical conditions.
Mehrotra said Privia is already approaching the low end of its long-term adjusted EBITDA-to-care-margin target of 30% to 35%, with 2026 guidance approaching 29%. Over the next five years, he said the company believes AI could help it reach or exceed the high end of that margin range.
Executives also said ambulatory utilization did not show major swings from weather or respiratory illness in the quarter. Mehrotra said telehealth is fully embedded in the company’s operations and that practice collections did not decline because of snow days or flu-related variability.
Looking ahead, Privia said it remains focused on expanding in existing and new states, both organically and through acquisitions, while continuing to compound EBITDA and free cash flow. Mehrotra said the company’s preference is to deploy cash into business development and acquisitions rather than share repurchases, though he said Privia retains flexibility to return capital if warranted.
About Privia Health Group NASDAQ: PRVA
Privia Health Group NASDAQ: PRVA is a physician enablement company that partners with independent physicians, medical groups and health systems to transform the delivery of patient care. Through a clinically integrated network and a proprietary technology platform, the company supports providers in managing population health, delivering coordinated care and optimizing financial performance under both fee-for-service and value-based reimbursement models.
Founded in 2016 and headquartered in McLean, Virginia, Privia Health has rapidly expanded its footprint to serve multiple metropolitan markets across the United States.
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