HCA Healthcare, Inc.

And welcome to the HCA Healthcare Second Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference call. Today's call is being recorded at this time for opening remarks and introductions. I would like to turn the call over to Vice President of Investor Relations, Mr. Mark Kimbrough. Please go ahead, sir.

All right. Thank you, Catherine. Good morning and welcome to everyone on today's call. With me this morning is our CEO, Sam Hazen, and CFO, Bill Rutherford. Sam and Bill will provide some prepared remarks, and then we will take questions. Before I turn the call over to Sam and Bill, let me remind everyone that should today's call contain any forward-looking statements, they're based upon management's current expectations. Numerous risks, uncertainties, and other factors may cause actual results to differ materially from those that might be expressed today. More information on forward-looking statements and these factors are listed in today's press release and in our various SEC filings. On this morning's call, we may reference measures such as adjusted EBITDA, which is a non-GAAP financial measure. A table providing supplemental information on adjusted EBITDA and reconciling net income attributable to HCA Healthcare is included in today's release. This morning's call is being recorded and a replay of the call will be available later today. With that, I'll now turn the call over to Sam.

Good morning and thank you for joining us. With the effects of the pandemic moderating in the second quarter, we experienced a strong rebound in demand for our services. COVID admissions in the quarter were down to 3% of total as compared to 10% in the first quarter. Volumes across all categories grew significantly compared to last year. And notably, we grew inpatient admissions and outpatient surgeries over 2019. The growth was supported by an improved payer mix, which resulted from an increase in commercial volumes. On a year-over-year basis, revenues grew 30% to $14.4 billion. Inpatient revenues increased 20%, driven by a 17.5% admission growth. Outpatient revenues grew an impressive 59%, reflecting the resurgence in outpatient demand across most categories. To highlight a few areas, outpatient surgeries were up 53%, emergency room visits grew 40%, cardiology procedures increased 41%, and urgent care visits were up 82%. Compared to 2019, overall inpatient admissions grew almost 3%, with commercial admissions growing 8%. Outpatient surgeries grew approximately 3.5%. Emergency room visits were only down 5.5%, with the month of June basically flat. Acuity, however, in our emergency rooms was up, with moderate growth in the most acute categories. We were able to leverage the increased revenue into higher margins. Adjusted EBITDA margin improved compared to last year, excluding the government stimulus income, and sequentially in comparison to the first quarter. Diluted earnings per share, excluding losses and gains on sales of facilities and losses on retirement of debt, increased 35% to $4.37. As noted in our release, EPS in the second quarter of 2020 included a $1.73 per diluted share benefit from government stimulus income. This benefit was reversed in the third quarter of 2020 as a result of the decision we made to return our entire share of provider relief funds from the CARES Act. Once again, our team is deliberate on our operating agenda. I want to thank them for their dedication and hard work. As we look to the rest of the year, we have raised our annual guidance to reflect the performance of the company over the first half of the year and the belief that the current levels of demand should prolong over the remainder of the year. We continue to invest aggressively in our strategic plan, which revolves around building greater clinical capabilities to serve our communities. while also developing more comprehensive enterprise resources to support caregivers and differentiate our local networks. We believe this operating model will continue to create value for our patients, deliver market share growth, and produce solid returns for our shareholders. Thank you, and now I'll turn the call over to Bill for more details.