Envision Healthcare's ambulatory services, known as AmSurg, reported a 2.6 percent year-over-year decrease in net revenues due to weather and flu-related cancellations during the first quarter.
The company reported a 0.7 percent drop in same-center revenue for the quarter as compared to last year., Envision President and CEO Christopher Holden touched on those points as well as the company's ongoing dispute with UnitedHealthcare and plans to move out-of-network contracts in-network during the first quarter conference call.
Here are five key quotes from Mr. Holden, as reported by Seeking Alpha:
On 2018 company goals: "Our focus is expanding our margins for the year. Our first quarter results reflect significant progress towards that goal in sync with our 2018 plan of $50 million of realized operational improvements, ending the year at run rate efficiencies of $100 million."
On moving in-network: "On the managed care contracting front, we continue to make progress in negotiating our out-of-network revenue to in-network. In 2017, we migrated nearly $500 million of out-of-network revenue to in-network status. For 2018, we've targeted the migration of another $250 million of out-of-network revenue and have achieved approximately $100 million of that goal. By year-end, we expect less than 5 percent of our total revenue will be out-of-network."
On private equity interest: "I had attended a large conference a week or so ago and had over 550 private equity and other entities there that are interested in learning more about physician services and ASCs. Clearly well attended, a lot of interest in the space. It's just a hot topic right now. And I don't see that slowing down any time soon. The good news for us is that we're in a very enviable position to be very selective, to really focus on deploying our cash and our capital strategically, in line with the vision we've outlined."
On conflict with UnitedHealthcare: "As you are aware, we are involved in a known dispute with a large national payer, and recently the court found our contract's arbitration clause to be enforceable and transitioned the matter to arbitration, a positive indication regarding the overall enforceability of our contract."
On lower AmSurg revenue: "On the ASC side, I think that the flu and weather did matter in the quarter and does explain the trending there. I also believe that you're going to see some recovery from that in the second quarter…at the end of the day, the value proposition for surgery centers is indisputable. They do a great job on providing high-quality care. I think they still have runway for growth and expansion, and I remain very bullish on that story."