Centene Corporation

Centene Corporation   (Private healthcare company)
Member of	WEF/Strategic Partners
"Centene to sell GP clinics and hospitals in exit from UK market - US health insurer faced anti-privatisation protests and hospital integration proved tricky"

Centene Corporation is a private healthcare company based in St Louis, Missouri, which is an intermediary for government-sponsored and privately insured healthcare programs. Centene ranked number 25 on the 2023 Fortune 500 and led by CEO Sarah London focuses on insurance plans offered through Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act.

Revenue was up 15% in 2022 from the previous year. Centene’s $2.2 billion acquisition of behavioural-health specialist Magellan Health, completed in January 2022, was cited by the company as a major factor in its revenue growth for the year. Elsewhere, Centene has been divesting itself of “noncore” subsidiaries in an ongoing review of its portfolio. Divisions that it has sold off include Magellan’s pharmacy and specialty-health units.

In May 2023, Centene announced it would divest its AI-powered health care analytics company Apixio.

Acquisitions

Centene went public in December 2001. In 2006, the firm acquired US Script, a pharmacy benefits manager. The company later merged US Script with subsidiaries to form its Envolve divisions. In 2011, the firm formed Centurion, a provider of correctional health care services, as a joint venture with MHM Services. In 2018, it acquired MHM Services, including its stake in Centurion. Centene began offering state-run Medicaid programs through Affordable Care Act exchanges in 2014.

On 2 July 2015, Centene announced it would acquire Health Net. In March 2016, it finalised its acquisition On 12 September 2017, it announced that it would acquire Fidelis Care, a nonprofit insurer in New York, for US$3.75 billion. In March 2019, it announced plans to acquire WellCare for US$17.3 billion. On 4 January 2021, Centene announced that it would acquire Magellan Health for $2.2 billion, and completed the acquisition a year later.

UK operations

In the United Kingdom, Centene began to acquire local healthcare services in 2017. In 2019, Centene, through its subsidiary MH Services, took a 40% stake in Circle Health, as part of a deal which created a national network of over 50 private hospitals. In early 2021, Operose Health, a UK subsidiary of Centene, took over a group of London practices, AT Medics.

Divestments

In August 2023, Centene launched a sale process for its chain of nearly 60 Operose GP surgeries in the UK, with a deal expected by the end of the year. The business, which had revenues of £89mn in 2021, could sell for about £51.2mn, analysts estimated. The move comes days after Centene announced a $1.2bn sale of its Circle/BMI hospital chain to UAE-owned PureHealth. The twin disposals signal an abandonment of Centene’s UK strategy, which was meant to create a seamless pathway to private healthcare by buying up taxpayer-funded GP services and encouraging doctors to refer patients to its chain of 53 Circle/BMI hospitals in England.

Centene’s purchase of Operose GP surgeries in 2021 faced court challenges by anti-privatisation campaigners. Although their case was not upheld, activists viewed the purchase as a sign of the increasing privatisation of the NHS. Centene also found it difficult because its GP practices in north London were not near any Circle/BMI hospitals, and Centene found it hard to incentivise doctors, according to analysts:

“Centene has found it difficult to make Operose profitable because many Operose sites are in generally less affluent areas where recruiting GPs has been difficult,” said Victor Chua of Mansfield Advisors, a healthcare consultancy.

“There was no natural cross-sell between the Operose GPs and the Circle/BMI hospitals, which serve a different demographic and where the geographic overlaps are limited.”

 

Employee on Wikispooks

Employee	Job	Appointed	End
Samantha Jones	Chief Executive Officer	January 2019	April 2021

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References

This page imported content from Wikipedia on 30 August 2023.
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