Elevance Health, Inc. (NYSE:ELV) Q3 2024 Results Conference Call October 17, 2024 8:30 AM ET

For the period ending September 30, 2024

October 17, 2024 8:30 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Ladies and gentlemen, thank you for standing by, and welcome to the Elevance Health Third Quarter Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. Later, we will conduct a question-and-answer session where participants are encouraged to present a single question. [Operator Instructions] As a reminder, today's conference is being recorded.

I would now like to turn the conference over to the Company's management. Please go ahead.

Steve Tanal

Good morning and welcome to Elevance Health's third quarter 2024 earnings call. This is Steve Tanal, Vice President of Investor Relations. And with us this morning on the earnings call are Gail Boudreaux, President and CEO; Mark Kaye, our CFO; Pete Haytaian, President of Carelon; Morgan Kendrick, President of our Commercial Health Benefits Business; and Felicia Norwood, President of our Government Health Benefits Business.

Gail will begin the call with a brief discussion of the quarter and our revised outlook for the year and recent progress against our strategic initiatives. Mark will then discuss our financial results and outlook in greater detail.

After our prepared remarks, the team will be available for Q&A. During the call, we will reference certain non-GAAP measures. Reconciliation of these non-GAAP measures to the most directly comparable GAAP measures are available on our website, elevancehealth.com.

We will also be making some forward-looking statements on this call. Listeners are cautioned that these statements are subject to certain risks and uncertainties, many of which are difficult to predict and generally beyond the control of Elevance Health. These risks and uncertainties can cause actual results to differ materially from our current expectations. We advise listeners to carefully review the risk factors discussed in today's press release and in our quarterly filings with the SEC.

I will now turn the call over to Gail.

Gail Boudreaux

Thank you, Steve, and good morning, everyone. We appreciate you joining our earnings call. Today, we will review our third quarter financial results, discuss our outlook for 2024 and provide an update on the operating environment. During the call, we will also highlight fundamental drivers of long-term growth for Elevance Health, which remains strong.

For the third quarter, adjusted diluted earnings per share were $8.37 which was below our expectations, primarily due to elevated medical costs in our Medicaid business. The impact on the third quarter and our full year outlook are being partially offset by focused medical management, the work we are doing with states to reflect the acuity of our members in rates and proactive actions we are taking to enhance operating efficiency, which will strengthen our business for the long term.