Community Health Systems, Inc.

Good day and welcome to the Community Health System's second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. All participants will be in a listen-only mode. Should you need assistance, please signal a conference specialist by pressing the star key followed by zero. After today's presentation, there will be an opportunity to ask questions. To ask a question, you may press star then one on your touchtone phone. And to withdraw your question, please press star then two. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Anton High, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Thank you, Chuck. Good morning, and welcome to Community Health Systems' second quarter 2025 earnings conference call. Joining me on today's call are Tim Henschen, Chief Executive Officer, and Kevin Hammons, President and Chief Financial Officer. Before we begin, I must remind everyone this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements, including all statements that do not relate solely to historical or current facts. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks, which are described under headings such as risk factors in our annual report on Form 10-K and other reports filed with or furnished to the FDC. Actual results may differ significantly from those expressed in any forward-looking statements in today's discussion. We do not intend to update any of these forward-looking statements. Yesterday afternoon, we issued a press release with our financial statements and definitions and calculations of adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. We've also posted a supplemental slide presentation on our website. All calculations we will discuss today exclude gains from early extinguishment of debt, impairment gains or losses on the sale of businesses, and expense from business transformation costs. With that said, I'll turn the call over to Tim Henschen, Chief Executive Officer.

Thank you, Anton. Good morning, everyone, and thank you for joining our second quarter 2025 conference call. Before we get to the quarter's results, I want to address the announcement made yesterday afternoon that I've decided to retire at the end of September. I'm stepping back from my role as CEO for personal reasons, the most important one being that I want to dedicate more time to my family and personal pursuits. And while I have loved the opportunity to serve as the leader of an organization that is devoted to helping people get well and live healthier, the job of CEO requires the highest degree of time, energy, and commitment. and my family has very generously supported me and my commitment to giving everything I have to leading this organization. I've been thinking about that a lot this year. I want to be more present for them at this stage in my life and at this stage in theirs. I also have some personal pursuits that I want to explore while I'm still young enough and eager enough to try new things. This is not a decision that was made easily or quickly or without regard to what's best for CHS. I wrestled with whether to retire and when to retire, in part out of a sense of loyalty to the organization. But even more than that, out of my sincere desire to continue to be a part of the progress happening in this company and the opportunities and achievements I still see ahead. Those will continue to happen under Kevin's leadership, I am sure. But after thinking about it a lot and consulting with my family, this is the appropriate decision. Let's call it a difficult, honest, and for me, a necessary choice. I'll be here through the end of September to support a seamless transition, but truthfully, Kevin could step into the role of CEO today and things would be just fine. He knows CHS as much as anyone and he cares deeply about our company, our people, and the patients who choose and rely on CHS health systems for their medical care. I want to thank the CHS board for their faith in me and the CHS team for the privilege of being their leader. And thank you to our investors for your confidence in CHS. So now, with that, let me make just a few brief remarks about the quarter, and then Kevin will add quite a bit more detail and color about our results and what we see ahead, including potential impact from the big, beautiful bill. In the second quarter, on a same-store basis, net revenue increased 6.5% year-over-year. Inpatient admissions were up three-tenths of a percent, and adjusted admissions declined seven-tenths of a percent, with a 2.5% decline in surgery and a 1.9% decline in ER visits. While patient volumes were lower than expected and hampered our overall earnings results, we are confident that our past development and capital investment strategies have positioned CHS health systems very well to capture patient demand once consumer competence returns. and it always has. Our development strategies include physical capacity and service line expansion with a balanced focus on both inpatient and outpatient care. And we are intentional about broadening the footprint of our health systems through the ongoing recruitment of primary care, specialty physicians, and other providers. Specifically, through our year-to-date recruitment activities, we have over 200 providers currently scheduled to commence in the second half of 2025. including back-building for the departure of certain independent specialists. We have a strong clinic services operations team, and we are committing significant resources towards ensuring the successful and rapid ramp-up of our newest providers. Recent service line and capacity expansions in Knoxville, Maples, Laredo, Birmingham, and other key markets continue to ramp up and gain market share, and we have several new outpatient access points set to open in the coming months. including new ambulatory surgery centers in our Birmingham, Foley, and Tucson markets. Today, CHS operates more than 40 ASCs, a critical component of our market growth strategy, and to being well positioned to grow and serve consumer demand. We also continue to make progress on other strategic initiatives. Since our last earnings call in April, we completed the debasiture of Cedar Park Regional Medical Center in Texas. and continue to improve our maturity and leverage profile through successful debt refinancing and retirement transactions. Now, I'll turn the call over to Kevin, and as I do, I just want to once again express my full confidence in his upcoming leadership of community health systems. Kevin?