Health insurance stocks tumble on UnitedHealth comments

A top executive at UnitedHealth Group said Tuesday that the health insurance and services conglomerate has noticed “a meaningfully higher number” of outpatient visits among Medicare patients in the second quarter of this year.

The trend indicates a lot of older adults are getting care they had previously put off, which would eat into insurers’ earnings.

Speaking at a health care conference hosted by Goldman Sachs, UnitedHealth CFO John Rex said the company has recorded “strong outpatient care activity” throughout April, May, and the early part of June. A vast majority of the care has come from Medicare enrollees who are getting hip and knee replacements and heart procedures in outpatient clinics, he said. UnitedHealth is one of the country’s largest health insurance companies, and also owns a major chain of ambulatory surgery centers. Those outpatient centers are seeing “strong volumes,” according to Rex.

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