HCA Healthcare Inc. (NYSE: HCA) continues to see steady volume growth and generally positive financials, despite experiencing minor setbacks in the company’s outpatient surgery division and the operational challenges brought on by Hurricane Helene.
That’s according to HCA’s leadership team, which provided an update on the health care giant’s outlook during a 2024 third-quarter earnings call on Friday.
Nashville, Tennessee-based HCA operates 188 hospitals and about 2,400 ambulatory surgery centers (ASCs).
HCA’s outpatient surgery segment saw a 2% volume decline this quarter, which the company attributed to a drop in Medicaid and uninsured patient visits, CEO Sam Hazen and CFO Mike Marks said during Friday’s call.
At the same time, HCA saw a 7% increase in revenue per surgical case, driven by a shift to higher-acuity cases and a better payer mix. That, in turn, boosted profitability in the outpatient surgery segment, executives explained.
“The profitability of our outpatient surgery service is better as a result,” Hazen said. “So, on the [top line], volume is down, but on the bottom line, profits are up with respect to outpatient surgery. We’re comfortable with that outcome as it relates to next year. We don’t anticipate any significant changes at this particular juncture.”
Indeed, overall revenue for outpatient surgery still grew by 5%, Marks said.
Although they didn’t go into specifics, HCA will continue to expand its outpatient surgery capabilities through new facility development and select acquisitions, the executive said.
“By the end of this year, we expect to have added approximately 600 inpatient beds and 100 new outpatient facilities, bringing our total sites of care to over 2,600. Currently, the company has around $6 billion of projects under development,” Hazen said. “These investments, which should come online over the next few years, will add more capacity and create greater access across our networks, allowing us to meet the growing demand for healthcare services we anticipate in our markets.”
The CEO also noted the continued development of HCA’s outpatient capabilities will benefit patients.
“We’re advancing the number of surgery centers that we have in our company through greenfield development as well as some targeted acquisitions, and we continue to improve the operations of our hospital-based outpatient surgery centers, providing better environments for our physicians and better care environments for our patients,” Hazen said.
Hurricane Helene’s impact
While HCA has well-established disaster response protocols, Hurricane Helene disrupted operations across several states, including Florida, Georgia and North Carolina.
HCA estimated that losses from Helene have cost the company around $50 million.
In addition to these immediate expenses, the financial strain from ongoing recovery efforts will likely persist into 2025, while the company expects to reopen its damaged Largo, Florida, hospital by late December, Marks said.
Despite these weather-related setbacks, Hazen expressed confidence in HCA’s established resilience framework.
“Leveraging corporate capabilities effectively to support committed people in our facilities is fundamentally our formula for success,” Hazen said. “We call it the HCA Way. It works well in normal times, it worked well in the pandemic, and now it has proven itself again in these hurricanes.”
