HCA Healthcare plans more ASC acquisitions in 2019: 5 key points on payer mix, strategy & more

Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare CEO Sam Hazen and CFO Bill Rutherford discussed the company's growth in 2018 and strategy for the coming year during the 2018 earnings report conference call, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha.

 

In 2018, HCA Healthcare reported an increase in overall revenue, which hit $46.6 billion, and outpatient surgery case volume increased 1.8 percent year over year.

Five key quotes from the HCA Healthcare earnings call, as transcribed by Seeking Alpha:

Sam Hazen on outpatient strategy: "The second component of our spending is around building our network in our outpatient capabilities so that we are very convenient and easy to access. So we've added surgery centers; we've added three standing emergency rooms, urgent care centers, clinics and other diagnostic capabilities to really support a comprehensive opportunity for patients to access an HCA Healthcare system."

Bill Rutherford on payer mix: "We expect to see continued growth in equity and good payer mix. So I think this year we are helped by the strong commercial volume, continued growth equity and that's led us to be a little bit above our 2 percent to 3 percent kind of expectations [in same-facility revenue per admit]. We will see what 2019 has but we don't really see any major changes going [on] in the payer environment."

SH on hospital strategy: "We had almost 80 percent of our hospitals grow their EBITDA year over year. Seventy percent of our hospitals grew their admission year over year. Sixty-five percent of our hospitals grew their outpatient strategy year over year. This is an incredible portfolio performance and I think it speaks again to the clarity of our approach in the marketplaces."

SH on overall acquisitions: "We have and will continue to pursue outpatient acquisitions. We've recently made a large ambulatory surgery center acquisition in Austin, Texas. We have other markets where we are looking at acquisition of ambulatory surgery centers."

SH on physician practice acquisition: "We continue to use acquisitions of our physicians group as a way to add to our capabilities. Whether it's with more convenient offerings for our patients or for strategic reasons to support certain service line or facility need[s]…we don't talk about those in any significant way because they are small individually but they add up to support for our overall network positioning."

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