Oscar Health Targets Rural Areas to Fuel Growth Beyond Q2

Health technology company and insurance platform Oscar Health announced “strong” second quarter 2023 earnings on Tuesday (Aug. 8), telling investors that its growth strategy for 2024 will focus on leveraging its provider partnerships to expand into more rural areas.

According to the results, the Alphabet-backed startup, which coordinates tests ordered by primary care physicians and laboratory results, said premiums earned in the quarter increased by 48% year over year (YoY), driven in part by lower risk transfer per member as a percent of premiums.

According to Mark Bertolini, recently appointed CEO of Oscar, the company’s “strong second quarter results demonstrate that our pricing discipline, renewed operational focus, and solid execution are driving meaningful impact across our business.”

Bertolini added that the company remains on track to deliver on its profitability targets and plans to increase its service area footprint in more than half of the 20 states it currently operates in.

On the margin side, the company said it has identified increased benefits from its total cost of care initiatives in areas including the Pharmacy Benefits Manager (PBM) and fraud waste and abuse efforts.

“We expect to drive further administrative cost savings from our increased scale and overall efficiencies from our technology. Most importantly, though, we are expanding our innovative and affordable product offerings to continue providing an optimal member experience,” Bertolini further said.

The InsurTech, co-founded by Joshua Kushner, brother to Jared Kushner, former President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, raised $1.4 billion in an initial public offering (IPO) in March 2021 to pursue its goal of reducing the time lag for payments to healthcare providers.

Since, then the digital-first insurer has seen its membership numbers rise to a record total of over 1 million people in 2022, representing a 93% YoY increase, and up nearly double from the 598,200 members reported in the fourth quarter of the prior year.

“Customer engagements continued to be a competitive differentiator for us,” Mario Schlosser, former Oscar CEO and co-founder and now president of technology, said at the time, adding that, “fundamentally, Oscar is a growth company … focused on creating an ‘alternate reality’ health system.”