Kaiser Permanente Posts ‘Solid’ First Quarter Earnings
The state's largest HMO, Kaiser Permanente, has posted "solid" first-quarter results, continuing to gain "financial ground" following its "aggressive turnaround" in 1999, the San Francisco Chronicle reports. In 2000, the HMO operated in the black for the first time in four years, posting earnings of $584 million and operating income of $562 million on revenues of $17.7 billion. In the first quarter of FY 2001, the Oakland-based HMO posted net income of $156 million and operating income of $185 million on operating revenues of $4.9 billion. In comparison, Kaiser posted net income of $142 million and operating income of $167 million on operating revenues of $4.3 billion in the first quarter last year. Kaiser officials credited "first-quarter improvement" to increased membership, improved revenues and "operational efficiencies." San Francisco health care consultant Walter Kopp added that Kaiser's "turnaround is clearly continuing." But Dale Crandall, president of Kaiser Foundation Health Plan Inc. and Kaiser Foundation Hospitals, said that rising pharmaceutical and hospitalization costs and a nursing shortage "remain challenges to meeting" the company's performance goals (Colliver, San Francisco Chronicle, 5/1).