Print edition: 
Coventry Health Care, which acquired Preferred Health Systems earlier this month, had earnings of $109.1 million for the fourth quarter of 2009 and $315.3 million for the year, company officials said Tuesday.
"I am very pleased with the progress that the company has made over the past year," Coventry chairman and CEO Allen Wise said in a conference call.
Looking ahead, he said Coventry would begin discussions with Via Christi Health for "a Medicare product limited to their network." Coventry acquired PHS from Via Christi.
Via Christi has "a lot of resources in terms of medicine at home, monitoring at home, intermediate facilities," he said, explaining the interest in a Medicare product.
"I'd like to start with Via Christi and other organizations, doing something where we can offer a better value equation to the members, more benefits... and then do some kind of profit-sharing with the facilities, so we're not fighting over per diems or not fighting over rates."
Medicare products are one of Coventry's core businesses and one that Wise said experienced strong growth in 2009.
For the fourth quarter, Coventry reported operating revenue of $3.4 billion; revenue for all of 2009 were $13.9 billion. Revenue for the fourth quarter was up 15.2 percent from a year earlier; revenue for the year was up 18.5 percent over 2008.
Company officials said the acquisition of PHS, which was completed Feb. 1, was expected to be neutral to earnings for 2010.
