Tampa-based WellCare Health Plans added Medicare members to its health plans at a 34-percent growth rate during the 2008 enrollment season, confounding Wall Street analysts who had thought it would shrink.

 

As of March 12, the end date for the report released this week by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, WellCare had added more than 54,000 Medicare members for 2008.  That should add revenues of about $115 million, said Carl McDonald, managed-care analyst for Oppenheimer & Co.

 

“WellCare continues to positively surprise,” McDonald said in a report to investors on Wednesday. The company’s growth “is far better than the major declines most were expecting” at the beginning of the sales season, he said.

 

Analysts’ low expectations for WellCare stemmed from an ongoing investigation of the company’s behavioral-health subsidiary in Florida. Federal and state agents raided the WellCare campus in October, but have released no information on what they found.

 

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage enrollment for 2008 grew industry-wide by 858,000 beneficiaries as of March 12, about 80,000 above the pace of last year. Sign-up ended March 31 for most Medicare beneficiaries.

 

Medicare Advantage plans, such as HMOs, receive monthly premiums from the federal government to cover medical, hospital and drug coverage for beneficiaries who enroll. Because the federal payments exceed the spending level under traditional Medicare, the plans can offer Medicare members extra benefits. The plans are on track to add 1.3 million new members this year, which would push Medicare Advantage enrollment above 10 million, McDonald said.

 

Florida’s largest Medicare Advantage provider, Nashville-based Humana, added about 133,000 members nationwide. St. Petersburg’s Universal Health Care lost 28,000 members, the report showed.