Anthem Sees Employers Thinking About What to Do Now

Anthem Inc. is expecting COVID-19-related disruption to hurt group health plan enrollment, but, at this point, many employers are still thinking about what to do next.

Executives at the Indianapolis-based health insurer talked about the state of the group health market Wednesday, during a conference call the company held to go after first-quarter earnings.

Gail Boudreaux, the company’s chief executive officer, said she believes employers are focused first on ensuring the safety and health of their employees.

Resources

• Links to Anthem’s earnings resources are available here.
• An article about Anthem’s fourth-quarter earnings is available here.

“We had a really strong pipeline, and what we expect across many of these procurement opportunities is that they’ll move out further into next year,” Boudreaux said. “I do think we are going to see some deferred decisions, just because of what’s happening across this environment and need for employers really to focus on their own business right now.”

Peter Haytaian, the president of Anthem’s commercial and specialty business division, said that Anthem has seen furloughs accelerate, and that it has seen some employees fall off payrolls.

Employers are asking about affordable alternatives to the benefits they have now, Haytaian said.

Another sign of pressure on employers is an increase in the percentage of employers that will be paying their April premiums late: The percentage of employers using payment flexibility arrangements has increased to about 3% for April, from a historical range of about 0.5% to 1%, Haytaian said.

But, overall, “we haven’t seen acceleration yet in disenrollment,” Haytaian said.

About 40% to 50% of the workers who leave group health plans as a result of the COVID-19 situation could end up with Anthem Medicaid plan coverage or Anthem individual major medical insurance, Boudreaux said.

Earnings

Anthem is reporting $1.5 billion in net income for the first quarter on $30 billion in revenue, compared with $1.6 billion in net income on $25 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2019.

Anthem ended year providing or administering health coverage for 41 million people, up from 40 million people a year earlier.