Most Popular Stories
- NLRB forces ambulance company to rewrite social media policy
- VA hospital cancels surgeries after discovery of dirty tools
- Steward CEO promises a 'Southwest Airlines' approach to medicine
- Grant delays put New York hospital in jeopardy
- Anthelio Innovation Council includes insurance, healthcare execs
- HHS boosts prevention with $750M investment
- Study: Pay-for-performance doesn't work
- Hospitals take online reservations for ER appointments
- Dust earns evil eye from hospital surveyors
- VA hospital cancels surgeries after discovery of dirty tools
- Highmark recruits nurse practitioners as primary-care providers
- CIO: Hospitals may find it challenging to show Meaningful Use
Featured Jobs
- NP NEEDED FOR URGENT CARE CLINIC
CompHealth - Western, AZ - Emergency ANP for 10-b
CompHealth - Central, IL - CRNA needed to join cohesive group in NY! New Grads Welcome!
CompHealth - Northwest, NY - PSYCH CERTIFIED NP NEEDED IN WI - Great Schedule - Beautiful Location
CompHealth - Eastern, WI - PA or NP 6 month position at Government location
CompHealth - North Dakota
Events
- WCBF's 10th Annual Lean Six Sigma and Process Improvement in Healthcare Summit
May 10th – 13th 2011 — New Orleans Marriott, New Orleans, LA - 2nd Annual Medical Devices Summit 2011
March 7-8, 2011 — Omni Parker House, Boston, Massachusetts - 3rd Int'l mHealth Networking Conference
Mar 30-31, 2011 — Chicago, IL - 3rd Health Plan Innovation Congress
March 16-18, 2011 — Orlando, FL
Paid Research Reports
-
Electronic health records: getting it right first time
-
Cloud Computing Adoption In The APAC Life Sciences Industry
-
Stakeholder Opinions: Ophthalmology - Leading brands under threat
-
Genomics, Proteomics and Metabolomics in Diagnostics: Market landscape, innovative technologies and future outlook
-
Healthcare Regulatory Update: The United Arab Emirates
-
Point of Care Testing: Evaluating the return to evidence based medicine, novel technologies and the competitive landscape
Free Newsletter
Free Newsletter
FierceHealthPayer provides the latest news about the fast-changing and heavily regulated area of healthcare reimbursement. Join thousands of healthcare plan executives who get FierceHealthPayer via weekly email. Sign up today!
Top Tags
UnitedHealth boosted revenue, enrollment in 4Q
UnitedHealth Group (NYSE: UNH) posted a higher-than-expected fourth-quarter profit as enrollment grew across its plans and Americans used fewer medical services. If these fourth quarter results are any indication, it doesn't seem the health reform law or the struggling economy have hurt the health insurance industry.
UnitedHealth, whose diversity and size make it a bellwether for the industry, said its fourth-quarter net income rose 10 percent to $1.04 billion, or 94 cents per share, from $944 million, or 81 cents per share, a year earlier, according to Reuters.
The insurer generated $22.2 billion in revenue for the fourth quarter, up from $20.2 billion for the same quarter in 2009. Annual revenue was $87.44 billion, up 7.5 percent from $81.34 billion in 2009, reports the Hartford Courant.
Revenue was boosted partly because the company added 1.2 million customers to its health insurance business last year for a total of 37 million by the end of 2010, including 1 million people who bought insurance across the company's Medicare and Medicaid programs and 200,000 people who enrolled in commercial plans. Moreover, the Courant notes that UnitedHealth spent 80.6 cents of every premium dollar on medical expenses for the year.
UnitedHealth and other insurers have been helped in recent quarters from lower medical claims costs as people use fewer health services, a trend linked to the soft economy. In the fourth quarter, UnitedHealth's medical claims in relation to its revenue was the lowest in five years, notes the Wall Street Journal.
To learn more:
- read the Reuters article
- view the Hartford Courant story
- read the Wall Street Journal article
Related Articles:
UnitedHealth Group to grow health services, create in-house TTO
UnitedHealth CEO Stephen Hemsley took home $102 million in 2009
UnitedHealth Q3 profit, revenue up
Cigna's medical enrollment increases while Q3 profits fall
Comments
Post new comment
Check out more news by topic
Affordable Care | AHA | AHIMA | AMA | American Hospital Association | American Medical Association | American Recovery and Reinvestment Act | ARRA | Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services | Cerner | Charity Care | Cigna | Computerized Physician Order Entry | CPOE | David Blumenthal | Department of Health and Human Services | Electronic Health Records | Electronic Medical Records | EMR Adoption | Epic Systems | e-Prescribing | GE Healthcare | HCA | Health 2.0 | Health Information Exchange | Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act | Health Plans | Health Reform | Healthcare Costs | Healthcare Financial Management Association | Healthcare Reform | HFMA | HHS | HIMSS | HIPAA | Home Monitoring | Hospital Construction | Hospital Corporation of America | Hospital Finance | Hospital Layoffs | Hospital Strikes | Humana | Ingenix | Interoperability | Kaiser Permanente | Kathleen Sebelius | Mayo Clinic | McKesson | Meaningful Use | Medicaid | Medical Group Management Association | Medical Malpractice | Medicare | Medicare Fraud | Medicare Part D | Medicare Reimbursement | MGMA | mHealth Initiative | Moody's Investors Service | Office of the National Coordinator for Health Information Technology | Patient Collections | Patient Privacy | Patient Safety | Pay for Performance | Personal Health Records | Physician Compensation | RAC | Recovery Audit Contractor | Remote Monitoring | Remote Patient Monitoring | Siemens | Telehealth | Telemedicine | UnitedHealth Group | Wellpoint | Wireless Health |
Home | Subscribe | Advertise | Mobile Edition | RSS | Privacy | Site MapTHE FIERCEMARKETS NETWORKFierceFinance | FierceFinanceIT | FierceComplianceIT | FierceHealthcare | FierceHealthFinance | FierceHealthIT | Hospital Impact | FierceMobileHealthcare | FierceHealthPayer | FiercePracticeManagement | FierceEMR | FierceCIO | FierceCIO:TechWatch | FierceContentManagement | FierceMobileIT | FierceGovernmentIT | FierceBiotech | FierceBiotech Research | FiercePharma | FierceVaccines | FierceBiotechIT | FiercePharma Manufacturing | FierceMedicalDevices | FierceDrugDelivery | FierceIPTV | FierceOnlineVideo | FierceTelecom | FierceVoIP | FierceBroadbandWireless | FierceDeveloper | FierceMobileContent | FierceWireless | FierceWireless:Europe | FierceCable© 2011 FierceMarkets. All rights reserved. |