“we remain confident in our ability to deliver on the health services segment earnings outlook we shared with investors on our second quarter call.”

In context

“ould like to provide some directional commentary to help you better understand how we see the moving parts. Starting with our health services and pharmacy and consumer wellness segments, as we have previously highlighted, those businesses continue to deliver strong results. In PCW, while the immunization season got off to a stronger start than we expected, shifting demand into the third quarter, strong script growth continues to give us confidence in the previous outlook we share with investors. In the health services segment, Caremark’s earnings progression in 2024 started slow but has steadily built momentum over the second and third quarters. While we maintain a cautious outlook on our healthcare delivery business as we evaluate the potential for additional Medicare trend-related risk, we remain confident in our ability to deliver on the health services segment earnings outlook we shared with investors on our second quarter call. Within healthcare benefits, we continue to grapple with both environmental and company-specific challenges, as you have seen with our third quarter results. Similar to others within the industry, Medicare Advantage utilization continues to be elevated. We have also grown membership very rapidly with a very rich benefit offering, which has resulted in benefit-induced utilization. Medicaid continues to be pressured by the dislocation between acuity and rates, as well as seeing some pockets of higher utilization. We have also seen rapid growth in our individual exchange business, which has led to several disappointing updates on risk-adjusted revenue and, in some states, higher than expected utilization. To date, the combination of these factors has challenged our visibility and our 2024 out”