MEDICAL

Bucking an industrywide fall in profits, FHP International Corp. this week reported third-quarter net income of $4.2 million, up 47% from $2.8 million for the same quarter a year ago.

The Fountain Valley-based health maintenance organization also posted revenue of $135.8 million for the third fiscal quarter ended March 31, which was 44% more than the $94.2 million in revenue it reported for the third quarter of fiscal 1987.

The company’s net income for the first three quarters of fiscal 1988 was $10.4 million, up nearly 20% from $8.7 million for the same period of fiscal 1987. And its revenue for the nine months was $358 million, a nearly 33% increase over $269.7 million for the same period a year before.

Both FHP officials and industry analysts said that while the profits of other managed health care companies have severely eroded over the past two years, FHP has done well, in large part because it has exercised exceptionally good control over costs.

“They control costs because they own the (medical) delivery system” that their medical insurance subscribers use, said Richard Carpe, a health care specialist with the accounting firm of Laventhol & Horwath in Costa Mesa.

FHP officials agreed that by employing a medical staff and owning medical facilities, from a hospital to clinical laboratories and pharmacies, FHP has been better able to control costs than other prepaid health care plans that contract with independent purveyors for all medical services.

Also, the company attributed its success to expansion of its health care plan aimed at the Medicare population.

FHP has 360,000 subscribers in California, Arizona, New Mexico, Utah and Guam, of which 97,000 are enrolled in the senior citizen program.