Kaiser Permanente saw membership boom while posting higher operating income and investment income in 2016.
This year alone, it added 651,277 members after completing the acquisition of Group Health Cooperative in Washington.
Oakland-based Kaiser, which owns 38 hospitals in addition to its giant health plan, reported operating income of $1.9 billion on revenue of $64.6 billion in 2016 compared with operating income of $1.8 billion on revenue of $60.7 billion in the prior year.
Net income ballooned to $3.1 billion in 2016 compared with $1.9 billion in 2015 as investment and non-operating income jumped to $1.2 billion in 2016 from $102 million a year ago. Kaiser only records gains when it sells investments; it does not book paper gains in the value of its portfolio.
"Financial performance continued to be steady in 2016,” said CFO Kathy Lancaster. “Kaiser Permanente's stability provides us with the opportunity to continue our mission of providing high-quality, affordable healthcare.”
With the acquisition of Group Health, Kaiser now serves more than 11.3 million members in eight states and the District of Columbia. The deal was initially announced in March 2016 and closed earlier this month.
Kaiser added 429,000 members in 2016 predominantly through organic growth.
The $2.8 billion that Kaiser spent on capital improvements in 2016, a slight uptick over the $2.7 billion in 2027, supported the opening of 12 new medical centers, two dental offices and an information technology campus in Atlanta, an investment that will create about 900 IT jobs by 2019, the company said.
Kaiser now has 636 medical clinics. Over the next 12 to 14 months, it plans to open more than two dozen medical offices.
Kaiser is the nation's largest not-for-profit health system, dwarfing the runner-up Ascension at $21.9 billion in annual revenue.
