Coventry

Interesting notes from their analyst’s call, focusing on their First Health acquisition…
They are “achieving synergies” by reducing headcount and consolidating purchasing. On the pink-slip front, the combined First Health-Coventry operations will shrink by about 450 positions by year end. In total, they expect to exceed $25 million in synergies.
They are also successfully renegotiating vendor contracts; examples include telecom where expenses were $21 million between FH and Coventry. They have renegotiated deals to achieve savings of over $5 million, with no operational change.
In April, they completed conversion to FH for OON emergencies from an outside vendor who supplied that OON service.
During the call, Coventry’s CEO, Dale Wolf, was quick to note the value of FH, and specifically their workers’ comp products which are generating slightly more than $210 million in revenue per year (about 3% of Coventry’s total), but a surprising 11% of their margin. A profitable product line indeed. In total FH revenue was under $142 million in Q1 which was less than expected but not materially so.
Wolf stated that Coventry wants growth in their 3 areas at FH (WC, network rental, and the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (FEHPB)), and noted that the equity markets appear to have confirmed their belief in FH.
Wins for FH for the unit include an expanded relationship with AIG, a new customer in Fireman’s Fund (which had been in the works for some time), (both in workers comp) and selling (non WC) services to a Fortune 100 employer. Wolf also cited new business wins in rental network. Coventry expects FH will continue to grow modestly in 2005 but more in 2006
On the network side, it sounded like Coventry is working to renegotiate facility deals to drive better discounts, although this was somewhat unclear.
Looks like FEHBP is a potential problem with declining enrollment, but high premium increases appear to have moderated somewhat and Coventry sounds hopeful.
The company has added one more position at senior level, one more to go. Wolf says they have assimilated FH and are in execution mode. Sources indicate the slot that is still open is for the leader of the Workers Comp unit; they continue to look outside the combined company (search has been going on for about two months to date).
While I have every confidence in Coventry’s ability to maximize the return from the FEHBP and network rental business (this is fairly similar to their core group health business), my sense is the optimism about FH’s WC business may be somewhat misplaced. Here’s why:
1. FH’s largest customer is Liberty Mutual, which accounts for about a fifth of their business in WC. Liberty has their network contract out to bid, and I would be quite surprised if First Health retains all of their present business. Expect them to lose several states to competitors.
2. The Hartford’s recently announced deal with Aetna to access their WC network in PA noted that they plan to expand their relationship into other states. Sources indicate this is not a hollow promise, so I would expect the Hartford to move other FH states to Aetna over the next 9-12 months.
3. FH’s WC network continues to suffer from “hollowing out”, as payers hire specialty managed care vendors such as OneCallMedical and MedRisk to provide imaging and physical medicine networks respectively. (note MedRisk is an HSA client). WIth imaging at slightly less than 10% and PM at about 20%, the loss of network access revenue for FH will grow as more payers adopt this strategy.
4. EDS manages FH’s medical repricing technology, and their ongoing struggles with the FH medical bill repricing system are well known, and are not helping the company solidify relationships with existing customers. This has always been a “loss leader”, strategically identified by the ex-FH leadership as a way to “lock in” customers for the FH network. It remains to be seen if the new bosses continue to support that strategy.
What does this mean to you?
Coventry management is quite strong, and has made signficant progress in fixing some of FH’s problems. If you are working with FH, patience may be the watchword, but additional progress, in the form of a defined IT strategy, an increased willingness to partner with specialty networks, and a demonstrated understanding of the huge asset that is their medical bill database will be a requirement for success.