Elevance Health's headquarters in Indianapolis. Credit: iStock
Elevance Health — the health insurance giant formerly known as Anthem — sees strong employer interest in a program that helps plan participants cope with health care access and billing problems.
Gail Boudreaux, the company's chief executive officer, said Tuesday during a conference call with securities analysts that the company's patient advocacy service now serves about 6 million patients.
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"With a 95% satisfaction rate, it's become a valuable differentiator, especially among employers seeking holistic, proactive care for their employees," Boudreaux said.
Boudreaux said the company also sees strong employer interest in integrated group health benefits packages that combine advocacy, behavioral health, pharmacy, and specialty care.
Overall, "we're encouraged by the momentum we have heading into the 2026 selling season," Boudreaux said.
Elevance executives also mentioned that claims at the company's group Medicare Advantage plans, which help employers provide retiree health benefits, have been higher than in 2024 but in line with the company's projections.
Elevance held the conference call, which was streamed live on the web, to go over results for the first quarter. A recording of the call is available here.
Benefits market silence: Most U.S. companies that sell stock to the general public hold calls with securities analysts every quarter.
Company executives who participate in calls typically deliver prepared remarks, then answer questions from the analysts.
The Elevance call showed that, for now, the performance of health insurers' group health business is getting little attention from the analysts.
The company executives gave much more detailed information in their opening remarks about other Elevance operations.
The executives received two questions from the securities analysts about their individual health business, many questions about their Medicare and Medicaid plan operations, one about group Medicare Advantage plan performance and none about ordinary employer plans.
The lack of interest in employee benefits evident during the Elevance call was also evident during a similar earnings call UnitedHealth held April 17.
Related: UnitedHealth CEO objects to critics' 'obsession' with PBMs' role in drug supply chain
UnitedHealth executives briefly mentioned their happiness with the company's commercial health coverage claims and sales outlook, but they received no analyst questions about their employer plan business.
Analyst questions for the UnitedHealth executives focused on the company's government plan business, health care delivery business and prescription drug benefit manager business.
Elevance earnings: The first quarter ended March 31.
Elevance is reporting $2.2 billion in net income for the quarter on $49 billion in revenue, compared with $2.2 billion in net income on $43 billion in revenue for the first quarter of 2024.
The company ended the quarter providing or administering coverage for 46 million people, or about as many people as it was covering a year earlier.
Here's what happened to the number of people covered through several types of employer-sponsored benefits arrangements when compared with the number covered in the year-earlier quarter:
Ordinary fully insured group health: 3.6 million (down 0.3%)
Self-insured employer plans: 20.5 million people (down 0.5%)
Federal Employee Program: 1.6 million (down 0.5%)
Self-insured dental plans: 2 million (up 6.8%)
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Allison Bell
Allison Bell, a senior reporter at ThinkAdvisor and BenefitsPRO, previously was an associate editor at National Underwriter Life & Health. She has a bachelor's degree in economics from Washington University in St. Louis and a master's degree in journalism from the Medill School of Journalism at Northwestern University. She can be reached through X at @Think_Allison.
