Quest Diagnostics Incorporated

Welcome to the Quest Diagnostics second quarter 2022 conference call. At the request of the company, this call is being recorded. The entire contents of the call, including the presentation and question and answer session that will follow, are the copyrighted property of Quest Diagnostics with all rights reserved. Any redistribution, retransmission, or rebroadcast of this call in any form without the written consent of Quest Diagnostics is strictly prohibited and Now I'd like to introduce Sean Bevick, Vice President of Investor Relations for Quest Diagnostics. Go ahead, please.

Thank you, and good morning. I'm joined by Steve Roszkowski, our Chairman, Chief Executive Officer and President, Jim Davis, CEO-elect, Mark Guinan, Chief Financial Officer, and Sam Samad, our incoming Chief Financial Officer. During this call, we may make forward-looking statements and will provide non-GAAP measures. We provide a reconciliation of non-GAAP measures to comparable GAAP measures in the tables through our earnings press release. Actual results may differ materially from those projected. Risks and uncertainties, including the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic that may affect Quest Diagnostics' future results include, but are not limited to, those described in our most recent annual report on Form 10-K and subsequently filed quarterly reports on Form 10-Q and current reports on Form 8-K. The company continues to believe that the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on future operating results, cash flows, and or its financial condition will be primarily driven by the pandemic severity and duration, health care insurer, government, and client payer reimbursement for COVID-19 molecular tests, the pandemic's impact on the US health care system and the US economy, and the timing, scope, and effectiveness of federal, state, and local governmental responses to the pandemic, including the impact of vaccination efforts which are drivers beyond the company's knowledge and control. Before this call, references to reported EPS refer to reported diluted EPS, and references to adjusted EPS refer to adjusted diluted EPS. Any references to base business testing revenues or volumes refer to the performance of our business excluding COVID-19 testing. Growth rates associated with our long-term outlook projections, including total revenue growth, revenue growth from acquisitions, organic revenue growth, and adjusted earnings growth are compound annual growth rates. Finally, revenue growth rates from acquisitions will be measured against our base business. Now, here is Steve Roszkowski.

Thanks, Sean, and thanks, everyone, for joining us today. We performed well in the quarter, growing our base business year over year while increasing our share of COVID-19 molecular testing since March. As we have said before, We believe demand for COVID-19 electric testing is not going away anytime soon and will continue into 2023. Based on our overall performance in the quarter and our expectations for the remainder of 2022, we have raised our full year guidance. We also made very good progress on our leadership transition. Jim will give you an update and take you through our second quarter highlights. And then Mark will take you through our financial performance in more detail before we get into your questions. But before I turn it over to Jim, I'd like to say a few words about the Saving Access to Laboratory Services Act, now called SALSA, the important new federal laboratory legislation recently introduced in Congress as well as the U.S. Court of Appeals for the D.C. Circuit's recent ruling on our trade association's PAMA lawsuit. We're grateful for the efforts of Senate and House members who introduced this legislation on both sides of the aisle. In our view, SALSA could fix PAMA permanently, setting the Medicare Clinical Lab fee schedule back on a sustainable path In 2014, the intent of Congress when passing PAMA was to reform the Medicare clinical lab fee schedule to a single national fee schedule based on private payer rates for the clinical laboratory services. Unfortunately, the first round of data collection failed to collect the data from large, significant segments of the marketplace. The result was billions in Medicare cuts over three years, with more on their way if SALSA is not passed. Our trade association is coordinating congressional meetings along with public advocacy efforts that involves collaboration with the provider and patient communities. Last week, the DC Circuit Court issued a decision in the PAMA lawsuit filed in 2017 by our trade association, ACLA. In short, the court sided with ACLA and called the CMS's exclusion of hospital price data, quote, arbitrary and capricious. Importantly, this case has been rejected for procedural reasons, and this is the first opinion based on its merits. Unfortunately, the court is not requiring CMS to recalculate the flawed payment amounts. While disappointing the We believe this favorable ruling will give Congress additional strong grounds to finally fix PAMA's many flaws by passing Salsa. Now I'd like to turn it over to Jim Davis.