Insight, analysis & opinion from Joe Paduda

< Back to Home

Jun
25

Aetna is selling Coventry Workers’ Comp

It was perhaps the worst-kept secret in the industry; Aetna’s effort to sell the Coventry work comp business.

Now the secret is out, and yes it is true – they are looking to sell the entire thing – network, bill review, PBM, case management, and the rest.  

While a couple of friends have chided me – and undoubtedly more will – for my statements that this wouldn’t happen, I’d suggest that it may not.

The reasons are two-fold.  First, the PBM, FirstScript, uses Express Script’s retail pharmacy network and processing engine.  It represents about a third of the total revenues of Coventry Work Comp (CWC).  If Express decides it wants to own that business, or terminates the network and processing engine deals, FirstScript is in trouble.  Anyone looking at CWC is going to look at that as a risk.

Second, Aetna still has not figured out how to deal with the network contract issue. As I noted in a previous post:

The network generates the lion’s share of the margin; if Aetna wanted to sell the WC business it is hard to see how it could transfer the network’s provider contracts to the new owner as most are a combined WC/group/governmental contract. Sure, Aetna could guarantee access to their contracts going forward for some period certain, but given Aetna’s history with workers comp, any buyer would be very reluctant to bet the future of their investment on that guarantee.

Word is Aetna is NOT going to support the work comp contracts, which means whoever buys CWC – if anyone does – is going to have to convince providers to sign a contract based solely on work comp claims.  Considering workers’ comp accounts for just over 1 percent of total US medical spend, that’s a tough sell.  

So, who’s likely to bid on the asset that some lunatic said could go for as much as $1.5 billion?  (must’ve been on their way out of Colorado at the time..).

We’ll dig in to that later…


One thought on “Aetna is selling Coventry Workers’ Comp”

  1. Joe, A deal appears to be anything but actually “done.” Given the problem you aptly describe with respect to the value of a comp-only contract and the amount of money and effort it would take to assure provider continuity, what is your opinion about the future of the Coventry-based MPNs here in California? If CWC is sold, would these MPNs likely have to disolve due to lack of contracted coverage? Should customers be asking questions about the future of their Coventry-based MPN?

Comments are closed.

Joe Paduda is the principal of Health Strategy Associates

SUBSCRIBE BY EMAIL

SEARCH THIS SITE

A national consulting firm specializing in managed care for workers’ compensation, group health and auto, and health care cost containment. We serve insurers, employers and health care providers.

 

DISCLAIMER

© Joe Paduda 2024. We encourage links to any material on this page. Fair use excerpts of material written by Joe Paduda may be used with attribution to Joe Paduda, Managed Care Matters.

Note: Some material on this page may be excerpted from other sources. In such cases, copyright is retained by the respective authors of those sources.

ARCHIVES

Archives