UnitedHealth’s fourth-quarter net income surged 16%, and investors shrugged off a rare revenue miss to make the nation’s largest health insurer higher one of the biggest gainers in Wednesday trading.
Growing Medicare Advantage coverage and fat profits from UnitedHealth’s Optum business, which strays beyond the company’s health insurance core, contributed to better-than-expected earnings in the quarter.
Revenue grew 4% to
The insurer, a component of the Dow Jones Industrial Average, normally tops
UnitedHealth brought in more than
Product sales include the company’s pharmacy benefit management operation, which took a hit when it lost business from Cigna after the rival insurer bought its own PBM.
UnitedHealth earned
The
Medicare Advantage plans are privately run versions of the federal government’s coverage program for people over age 65.
Health insurance is UnitedHealth’s biggest business. But most of its operating earnings came from its Optum segment, which runs a growing number of clinics and urgent care and surgery centers as well as the PBM business.
Optum pulled in
For the full year,
The company on Wednesday reaffirmed 2020 profit expectations that it laid out last month at its investor conference. It forecasts adjusted earnings of between
Analysts expect per-share profits of
Company shares climbed more than 2 percent, or
The stock climbed 18% last year, with the price reaching
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