UnitedHealth Group earnings will provide the first window into the financial impact of the coronavirus crisis when it comes to health insurance costs from testing and hospitalizations, as well as the toll on providers from the cancellation of nonemergency care.
Christine McCarthy, a nurse for over 20 years and a palliative nurse for the past year, sits for a portrait on an empty hospital bed at Massachusetts General Hospital in Boston on Apr. 2, 2020. Here at the states largest hospital, staff are coping with unprecedented realities in this coronavirus pandemic and deeply worried about what is yet to come.
Covid-19-related medical costs are not expected to weigh on UnitedHealth's first-quarter results, because coronavirus testing and confirmed infections in the U.S. ramped up late in the quarter, during March. UnitedHealth's analytic team may have some view on the spread of the virus, but it may not be as useful as its flu-tracking data because of the limited testing on a national scale.
All these companies will be dumping expenses into this quarter. It will be ugly