Yahoo Finance Cigna (CI) Inks Deal With CHSS to Enhance Specialty Care
The Cigna Group’s CI subsidiary, Evernorth Health Services, recently announced its partnership with CarepathRx Health System Solutions (“CHSS”). This partnership will bring together Evernorth’s care and specialty expertise and CHSS’ infusion and pharmacy management qualities to better serve patients with complex care needs.
This move resonates well with Cigna’s ideology to accelerate and enhance the delivery of comprehensive and meaningful solutions to create value for healthcare providers. Moreover, this partnership will help with specialty pharmacy care delivery and boost Cigna’s top line. Pharmacy revenues accounted for the majority of revenues in the first quarter of 2023, and this is expected to rise in the future due to the CarepathRx deal.
The company’s Evernorth segment is set to keep improving on the back of retaining, expanding and winning new relationships. This demonstrates the value and quality of services Evernorth offers. Evernorth’s specialty care contributed 40% to the company’s total revenues and is expected to rise with increasing demand and partnerships. Evernorth’s care represents a significant growth opportunity as the need for virtual care and behavioral health services becomes more prevalent than before.
Evernorth’s union with CHSS will aid more than 600 hospitals, physicians and medical systems in diversifying the services offered for better treatment of patients. Services like virtual care capabilities, coordinated infusion services and value-based care will enhance the quality of service offered to patients.
As specialty care remains a focal point for hospitals, health systems and physicians, Evernorth’s collaboration with CHSS is a stepping stone to bring about more patient care services, thus improving overall outcomes. Evernorth’s minority investment is expected to close by the late second quarter or early third quarter this year.
Price Performance
Shares of Cigna have gained 3% in the past month against the industry’sdecline of 3.6%.
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Zacks Rank & Key Picks
Cigna currently carries a Zacks Rank #3 (Hold).
Some better-ranked stocks in the insurance space are Assurant, Inc. AIZ, American International Group, Inc. AIG and Old Republic International Corporation ORI. Each of these companies currently sports a Zacks Rank #1 (Strong Buy). You can see the complete list of today’s Zacks #1 Rank stocks here.
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The bottom line of American International outpaced estimates in three of the trailing four quarters and missed the mark once, the average surprise being 9.2%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for AIG’s 2023 earnings is pegged at $6.58 per share, suggesting growth of 44.6% from the respective year-ago reported figures. The same for revenues suggests an improvement of 8.5% from the prior-year actual. The consensus mark for AIG’s 2023 earnings has moved 0.6% north in the past seven days.
Old Republic’s earnings surpassed estimates in each of the trailing four quarters, the average surprise being 29.9%. The Zacks Consensus Estimate for ORI’s 2023 earnings is pegged at $2.4 per share. The same for revenues is pegged at $7.6 billion for 2023.
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