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Sentiment · FY2026 Q1
A pre-earnings brief is ready for UNH: the setup, what peers and partners said this season, and which analysts to watch. Reading it is a Tellvest Pro feature.
What companies say about each other on earnings calls — extracted verbatim from public transcripts. Mentions from the newest quarter are a Pro feature.
“you have 2 large mail order pieces of business with both Optum and Caremark.”
An analyst references McKesson's large mail-order pharmacy relationships with PBMs Optum (UnitedHealth) and Caremark (CVS Health) amid discussion of formulary-driven biosimilar revenue impacts.
“This includes coverage by UnitedHealthcare and Express Scripts as well as 20 of the top 25 state Medicaid plans.”
UnitedHealthcare is named as a payer that has added coverage for Gilead's HIV-prevention drug Yeztugo, a formulary win supporting the launch.
“if you normalize out for Optum. We are expecting the profit to grow above our long-term target of 4% to 6%.”
Cardinal Health references normalizing profit growth to exclude Optum, consistent with the large customer contract non-renewal cited as a headwind throughout the call, signaling the end of Optum's distribution relationship with Cardinal.
“Quest was named as the first independent national lab, to be selected to the Optum Health preferred lab network. The Optum Health PLN requires labs to meet rigorous quality and economic criteria to improve patient affordability and access.”
Quest became the first independent national lab selected to UnitedHealth's Optum Health preferred lab network, a quality-vetted partnership expected to drive volume from Optum's physician network.
“In a year with several unique hurdles, including change healthcare outage and hurricane disruption of our supply chain, I am reminded of the resilience of our organization and inspired by the passion of our dedicated care teams.”
The Change Healthcare (UnitedHealth) cyberattack outage was cited as one of the year's operational hurdles affecting DaVita's claims and collections processing.
“offset by the completion of the Amedisys transaction late in the third quarter which represented a net cash disbursement of $3.4 billion.”
UnitedHealth completed its acquisition of home-health provider Amedisys late in Q3, a $3.4 billion net cash outlay that temporarily elevated its debt-to-capital ratio.
“Being thoughtful about maintaining a strong balance sheet credit rating, and mindful of long-standing commitments. Including the pending Amedisys transaction.”
UnitedHealth's pending acquisition of home-health provider Amedisys remains a live capital-allocation commitment still working through the regulatory approval process as of Q2 2025.
| Analyst | Firm | Questions (Challenge)Percentage of questions scored as challenging — where the analyst pushed back, pressed for specifics, or questioned management's assumptions. |
|---|---|---|
| Lisa Gill | JPMorgan | 7 (0%) |
| Steve Baxter | Wells Fargo | 7 (0%) |
| Justin Lake | Wolfe Research | 6 (67%) |
| A.J. Rice | UBS | 6 (17%) |
| Erin Wright | Morgan Stanley | 5 (0%) |
| Josh Raskin | Nephron Research | 5 (40%) |
| Kevin Fischbeck | Bank of America | 4 (0%) |
| Ann Hynes | Mizuho Securities | 4 (0%) |
| Lance Wilkes | Bernstein | 4 (0%) |
| Andy Mok | Barclays | 4 (0%) |
| Firm | Analysts | Questions (Challenge)Percentage of questions scored as challenging — where the analyst pushed back, pressed for specifics, or questioned management's assumptions. |
|---|---|---|
| JPMorgan | 1 | 7 (0%) |
| Wells Fargo | 1 | 7 (0%) |
| Wolfe Research | 1 | 6 (67%) |
| UBS | 1 |
| 6 (17%) |
| Bank of America | 2 | 5 (0%) |
| Morgan Stanley | 1 | 5 (0%) |
| Nephron Research | 1 | 5 (40%) |
| Cantor Fitzgerald | 1 | 4 (0%) |
UnitedHealth closed FY2025 with adjusted EPS of $16.35, slightly ahead of the revised guidance, despite absorbing a $1.6B restructuring charge as full-year revenues approached $448B with 12% growth. FY2026 guidance was introduced at greater than $17.75 EPS for at least 8.6% growth with an MCR target of 88.8%, improving from 89.25%. MA membership contraction of 1.3-1.4 million was projected larger than initially expected, but AI investment of nearly $1.5B in 2026 was targeting $1B in cost reductions. The 2027 Medicare advance notice was disappointing with $130B in industry funding cuts projected over three years.
Margin | Regulation Policy | Competitive Dynamics | Cost Pressure | Guidance Reliability | Pricing | Demand | Innovation & R&D | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2024Q4 | 7 | 2 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 2 | |
| 2025Q1 | 6 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 1 | 1 | 1 | |
| 2025Q2 | 9 | 2 | 4 | 1 | 4 | 1 | 2 | |
| 2025Q3 | 6 | 3 | 7 | 3 | 2 | 2 | 1 | |
| 2025Q4 | 8 | 4 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | ||
| 2026Q1 | 8 | 4 | 2 | 3 | 2 | 1 | 2 | 1 |
| '24Q4 | '25Q1 | '25Q2 | '25Q3 | '25Q4 | '26Q1 | |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Margin | 7 | 6 | 9 | 6 | 8 | 8 |
| Regulation Policy | 2 | 6 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 4 |
| Competitive Dynamics | 2 | 2 | 4 | 7 | 3 | 2 |
| Cost Pressure | 3 | 3 | 1 | 3 | 1 | 3 |
| Guidance Reliability | 1 | 4 | 3 | 2 | ||
| Pricing | 1 | 1 | 1 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Demand | 1 | 1 | 2 | 2 | ||
| Innovation & R&D | 2 | 2 | 1 | 1 |
| Company | Score | Trend | Rev YoY |
|---|---|---|---|
UNH UnitedHealth Group Incorporated | 7 | +2.0% | |
| CI Cigna | 8 | +4.6% | |
| CNC Centene Corporation | 9 | +7.1% | |
| CVS CVS Health | 9 | +6.2% | |
| ELV Elevance Health | 7 | +2.6% | |
| HUM Humana | 7 | +23.5% |