Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) We will begin at the line of Charles Boorady with Citi.
Charles Boorady - Citi
Thanks for those comments regarding the 2010 guidance, recognizing the nature of the transaction warrants waiting. If we put the transaction aside though, looking at 2010 just on an organic basis, you talked about a very strong selling season. How would you characterize the outlook for 2010? Is it consistent with your outlook for ’09 last year this time, better or worse?
George Paz
Let me just take at stab at this and I'll ask Jeff to comment if he has anything further to add. 2010 has a lot of things going on in it. Obviously we’ve had a very strong selling season. We have actually been redeploying some of our capital into our base business to actually position us well for the future. We believe investing in the future. I suspect there will be some level of healthcare reform for change. We need to be prepared for that.
I think we are very well positioned to take advantage of that. Probably one of the more positive things is utilization trends have picked up some, but when we go back to historic levels, we’re still trailing historic levels fairly broadly, on a pretty big margin. So that is something that still needs to get better in line. I think the fact that we've turned the corner and are showing increases in script accounts is definitely positive.
Keep in mind how our business works. When you add a lot of new accounts, there is a significant amount of new start-up costs as we have to convert those claims (inaudible) and take all the calls and convert all the mail order files over. There are usually some higher costs associated with that.
There is a lot of headwind, but we’ve got a lot of tailwinds. So we feel very good about where we're positioned. As far as giving any more specific than that I think it would be better for us to wait until we can give you a complete picture after we get some time with the WellPoint data and see where they are at.
Charles Boorady - Citi
Finally, in terms of a jumping off point for modeling 2010, is it fair to just rollback in the financing costs related to the transaction and exclude the one-time items? Can you talk about what do you see as a real run-rate 2009 number to use as we model our 2010?
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