Richard Montoni
Analyst · CJS Securities
Thanks, David. Good morning, everyone. This morning, MAXIMUS reported first quarter year-over-year revenue growth of 12%, and we remain on track to achieve our full year guidance. As many of you know, the management team has spent a lot of time on the road over the last couple of months. It’s been a great opportunity for me personally to spend time with our investors and to introduce our story to many new faces. We have received very insightful feedback and value your input. So I want to take a moment to thank you for your ongoing support. Our progress in the United Kingdom has been a common topic in our meetings. And since that’s at the top of everyone’s mind, let's’ start there. While the Work Program is still in its early days, our operations are going largely as expected. We continue to see higher case volumes coming through the program, the Department of Work and Pensions anticipates this trend will continue for the near term as we the UK economic outlook has weakened since the program commenced. In response to the increased volumes our team is focused on balancing resources to service the caseload. And while we are seeing an increase in overall volumes, the case mix is different than initially contemplated. At this point, we are seeing an increase in customer volumes for the easiest to serve streams but lower volumes in the more profitable difficult to play streams. So while we are working an increased caseload, we currently expect the net impact will be neutral to our financial results and we still remain on track to achieve breakeven in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2012.
Over the last several weeks, the UK press has widely covered several new stories related to the work program and all eyes continue to be focused on this ambitious reform effort. Last week, the National Audit Office, the entity responsible for auditing the work of UK government agencies, issued a report that offered early feedback on the Work Program. The NAO expressed concern that vendors who offered steep price discounts may be challenged by the mandated performance standards and cut corners in an effort to reach performance targets. MAXIMUS did not heavily discount prices because we recognize that the contract contained rigorous performance requirements. While the providers who discounted heavily received more work, we believe that we received the right allotment of regions at a fair price. The report affirmed for me that we chose the appropriate bid strategy by striking the right balance of risk and reward. Our approach for prudent, balanced and profitable growth has allowed us to make the necessary investments and a delivery model that we believe can achieve the desired outcomes for our client and yield a fair return. In addition, the Department of Work and Pensions stated that one of the options for addressing those vendors who struggled to meet the performance targets, is to transfer work to other prime contractors. This scenario may provide an opportunity for MAXIMUS to grow our footprint down the road, but as we have talked about previously, we don’t believe the department will reassess vendor performance until at least 18 months into the program, when vendors can see clear performance trends related to sustained employment. All in all, we are confident that MAXIMUS will be at the forefront of the performance under the Work Program as demonstrated by our unparalleled results under the predecessor FND contract and our rich experience in service delivery in the United States and in Australia. We believe our operations will serve as an example of best practices and value for this important initiative for decades to come. In the meantime, we are actively assessing new opportunities within the UK as we look to bring our full capabilities to market. The government is in the process of introducing a new bidding framework to prequalify a list of potential vendors for a variety of administrative functions for public benefit programs. If we are successful in securing a spot in the framework, this could represent an expansion of our presence in the UK and open the door to many new exciting opportunities.
Let’s now turn our attention to Canada, where we continue to make steady progress in growing our footprint in this key market. Last quarter, we talked about several new wins and today we have more good news to share. The ministry of health and long term care in Ontario recently awarded us a contract to administer the province’s drug benefit program. The three-year base contract includes several options periods that brings the total potential value to $43 million, and that’s Canadian, $43 million over 10 years. Under the contract we will bring about people, process and technology to meet the most populous province in Canada. There we will support nearly $3 million citizens who have drug benefit coverage under the senior co-payment and the Trillium Drug Programs. Our new customer contact operations center in Toronto will offer full document and case management through a service deliver model that’s streamlined by business process management strategies. Starting in April, we will process applications, renewals, change notifications and receipts, under strict information privacy and security standards. In fact, our experience in meeting these types of rigorous standards in our other Canadian operations made us well equipped for this new contract.
As David mentioned last quarter, we have also been working with the province of British Columbia to help modernize its PharmaNet system. Upgrades to the system went live last week, adding electronic prescribing and medication management capabilities. Now the province can begin on-boarding physicians so they can create electronic prescriptions and receive real time drug utilization reviews and potential adverse drug interactions. These functional benefits are similar to those provided by the Medigent Drug Information system that we’re now implementing in Nova Scotia and proposing to other provinces.
Across the globe, the underlying drivers for our services are substantial. Many countries are facing fiscal challenges coupled with more complex and rising caseloads, as well as the overarching need to reform welfare and health systems. We see some specific near-term opportunities that are right in our sweet spot and that we expect to ramp up over the next couple of years. We are actively engaged in pursuing initiatives where we can provide value through our core service offerings.
Turning now to our domestic operations, where we continue to prepare for healthcare reform and the establishment of health insurance exchanges. While some states are moving full steam ahead with their procurements, others are taking a more wait and see approach. A small number of states have decided to participate in the federal exchange, are considering a hybrid federal-state exchange or are waiting for a legal decision on the law. However, the majority of the states prefer to control their own destinies and are currently at various points in the planning and implementation process for a state based exchange. To date, 29 states have been granted Phase 1 Establishment funds for their exchanges and we now see active efforts by states to prepare for and meet the Phase 2 funding deadline. As expected, the procurements are rolling out in stages. In recent weeks, 2 states issued RFPs, for components of their health benefit exchanges, while many of the earlier RFPs have been focused on the technology as we expected, we are now starting to see RFPs that include business process services. We recognize that there is still much to be resolved as it relates to the law, but ultimately we firmly believe that many states will likely continue down the path of a health insurance market place even if their exchanges don’t fit the ACA model. It’s likely the federal government will give states more flexibility around the 2013 readiness deadline and the 2014 go live date. This could create a gradual ramp for the establishment of exchanges but doesn’t impact the overall demand for our services. At the end of the day, the fundamental underlying issues that led to reform are not going away and must be addressed.
The shift to Medicaid managed care continues to be a growth driver for MAXIMUS. And we continue to see states move in this direction. The Governor of California recently issued his proposed budget, which included a significant expansion of Medicaid managed care into all counties. In addition, the budget also proposes moving Medicaid beneficiaries with dual-eligibles into the state’s Medicaid program, all this in an effort to improve coordination of care. Under these 2 initiatives, the state estimates that they could save approximately $1.7 billion by the end of 2014. California is not the only state looking for solutions to manage beneficiaries who are eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation, the nearly 9 million dual-eligibles represent 15% of the Medicaid population, but account for nearly 40% of the program spend. Although this ratio varies from state to state, it is a major concern to governors and our agency directors because of the significant cost associated with serving this population. These high costs are attributed to a number of factors, but are primarily due to the difference in coverage rules between the 2 programs which leads to a lack of coordinated care for the beneficiaries. Improved coordinated care between Medicare and Medicaid will lower cost and improve quality, a shared goal for the both the states and the federal government. We believe we can help states better manage administrative services associated with the duals. For example, MAXIMUS has offered many of our core services to the duals population in Texas and we have done this since 1998. This includes education about managed care options, choice counseling, plan selection assistance, as well as application processing and enrollment. As more Medicaid eligible baby boomers age into Medicare, they will seek support from an independent organization like MAXIMUS to help them select plans that coordinate their care and best meet their personal needs. ACA created 2 entities to help coordinate the care of dual-eligibles. The Federal Coordinated Healthcare Office and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation. These 2 entities issued $1 million grants to 15 states to develop proposals for new approaches to better coordinate care for duals. And several of these mentioned MAXIMUS and our delivery model in their proposals. We are pleased to see early reform activities at the state and federal level to address the care coordination and budgetary challenges associated with serving the growing duals population. While this may represent a new and promising opportunity for MAXIMUS in the long-term, this market is still in the development stage and we look forward to future initiatives that strengthen both the Medicaid and Medicare programs
Moving on to new awards and sales pipeline. As a reminder, fiscal 2011 was an extremely active and successful year for rebids which bolstered our contract awards last year. Fiscal ’12 is fairly light for rebids, which is great news. So when you review the fiscal ’12 awards for comparison to the prior year, you should expect lower year-over-year awards. At January 30, our fiscal year-to-date signed contract wins totaled $298 million, and new contracts pending, those that are awarded but unsigned, totaled $579 million. The new contracts pending portion of the pipeline contained the $450 million extension in Australia. We remain on track for the extension which will take our contract through June 30, 2015. We expect to have this contract extension completed by mid-April. Our pipeline of sales opportunities at June 30 remains strong at $1.7 billion and is consistent with last year. As a reminder, investors should expect routine fluctuations along the pipeline in new sales categories, these shifts are driven by the stages of the procurement process as well as the timing of when contracts are awarded and ultimately signed.
So in summary, we are very well positioned to achieve our objectives in fiscal 2012. The management team is keenly focused on our near-term goals that include successfully ramping up our operations in the United Kingdom and achieving breakeven in the fourth quarter. Winning our fair share of healthcare reform in the United States and searching for qualified acquisitions. We continue to look for growth platforms that fit well within and complement our current business portfolio in an effort to drive long-term growth and deliver shareholder value. And with that let’s open it up for questions. Operator?