Humana Eyes Another Strong Growth Year for CenterWell Primary Care

Humana Inc. plans to add up to 70 clinics to its CenterWell Primary Care network for seniors this year and could grow that number via an acquisition, executives said Feb. 11.

The expected growth for CenterWell Primary Care comes after a 2025 in which the business grew its patient base by more than a quarter to about 500,000. (That included roughly 32,000 people brought on via the acquisition of The Villages Health.) President and CEO Jim Rechtin and his team are targeting the addition of between 120,000 and 140,000 patients this year and will be helped by what CFO Celese Mellet called “a significant tailwind” from strong growth in Humana’s core Medicare Advantage business.

“All of that growth across CenterWell [which also includes pharmacy and home health services] is very positive from a margin perspective,” Mellet said on a conference call discussing Humana’s fourth-quarter earnings and 2026 outlook.

Adding about 70 clinics will grow Centerwell Primary Care’s network to more than 400. Much of that footprint is concentrated in Florida but it also has a significant presence in Texas and Louisiana, among others. That clinic count could soon grow significantly: Rechtin said on the conference call that he hopes to “soon announce a strategic acquisition in the primary care space.”

Also on the call, Rechtin and Mellet reiterated their confidence in Humana’s growth—individual Medicare Advantage membership is expected to jump by a quarter this year to roughly 6.5 million—even as several other insurers have been content to shrink enrollment while focusing on margins. Rechtin said delivering “a stable and compelling margin” is just as important to the Humana team and added that his teams aren’t picking up other carriers’ undesirable customers.

“Seventy percent of new sales were in contracts with four stars or better and nearly 30 percent of our new sales were bounce-back members. So these are members that we have seen before,” he said. “We recognize them and we are pleased with the mix. Over 75 percent of our new sales were from higher-lifetime-value channels […] They’re from better sales channels.”

In the fourth quarter, Humana posted a net loss of $776 million on revenues of more than $32.5 billion. The loss included $221 million of impairment charges linked to assets in some states as well as a joint-venture investment. For the year, the company booked a net profit of $1.2 billion, which was flat from 2024, on nearly $130 billion in revenues.

Investors didn’t quite buy Rechtin’s strategy explainer: Shares of Humana (Ticker: HUM) fell more than 3% to $175.40. Over the past six months, they’re now down about 34 percent, a slide (due in large part to a plunge on word that Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services leaders are planning a tiny increase to MA rates in 2027) that has cut the company’s market capitalization to about $21 billion.