Nevada awarded Molina Healthcare a Medicaid managed care contract, the company announced Tuesday.
The four-year contract starts in January and Nevada can opt to renew it for another two years. The insurer will also offer health coverage through Nevada Health Link, the states insurance exchange. Molina will cover 25% of the state's Medicaid managed care population next year, or about 157,000 people, according to a spokesperson for the Nevada Division of Health Care Financing and Policy.
"We are honored that Nevada has awarded Molina the opportunity to serve the state's most vulnerable citizens," Molina Healthcare CEO Joe Zubretsky said in a news release. "Molina looks forward to advancing the state's goals of improving care management, member access, and overall health equity for its Medicaid members."
Molina is bullish on its prospects for winning Medicaid contracts in other states, too, Zubretsky said during an earnings call last month.
"We've really, really amped up our in-state round game, building those relationships years and years in advance of the procurement in order to really understand the state program and to have those relationships that are so important to a state contract," Zubretsky said at the time.
In February, the company reported a $100 million year-over-year drop in profits in 2020, with a rise in COVID-19 costs, acquisition expenses, and the extension of the risk-sharing corridors during the public health crisis cutting into the Long Beach, California-based insurer's bottom line.
Molina has been on a roll over the last few years, scooping up small Medicaid plans throughout the country to grow its top line. Molina's targets are usually financially underperforming companies the insurer believes it can turn around using its operational expertise. Molina executed its own company overhaul in 2017 and 2018 to eliminate costs before shifting its sites to growing its business last year.
Molina is buying Cigna's Medicaid and managed care operations in Texas for $60 million in cash, the company announced in April and expects the deal to close in January. The acquisition will increase Molina Healthcare's low-income rolls to nearly 4 million.
