Managing to make a profit

Quick View. March 18, 2002.

Most of the big HMOs made money last year. The nation's largest publicly traded HMOs used some combination of acquisitions, premium hikes and cost cutting to achieve gains, even if they couldn't always drive down their medical-loss ratios (premium dollars spent divided by premium dollars collected). Here are the 2001 numbers released in February by some of the largest HMOs.

The outlier of this group is Aetna, which is retracting from unprofitable markets as part of planned turnaround. In fact, Aetna's strategy of shedding members has now made UnitedHealth Group the nation's largest publicly traded HMO in terms of membership.

This information and the accompanying full-text visual aids were drawn from the following source:

Company year-end reports filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission..