HCA Healthcare, Inc.

Welcome to the HCA Healthcare Third Quarter 2022 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. Frank Morgan. Please go ahead, sir.

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, let me remind everyone that should today's call contain any forward-looking statements, they're based on 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 refer to 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 Inc. 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. Thank you for joining the call. As I've mentioned on past calls, it has been difficult over the pandemic period to judge our business trends because of the ups and downs we have experienced with the various COVID-19 surges. If you recall, the third quarter of 2021 was the most intense surge we saw with the Delta variant, and it significantly influenced our business, making it difficult to compare. We believe the second quarter and the third quarter of this year provide us with the most sustained period yet, for us to judge our business. Generally, the financial results in the third quarter were in line with our internal expectations. As compared to the second quarter, our revenue production was consistent with overall volumes, payer mix, and acuity generally stable. These results were generated with capacity constraints in certain situations caused by ongoing labor market challenges. In the quarter, we continued to invest significantly in our workforce, including the opening of one more Galen College of Nursing campus. These investments produced improvement in retention, more new hires, and reduced contract labor expenses. Overall, operating margins were solid and were a positive reflection on the disciplined execution by our teams. I want to thank them for their enduring commitment to our patients and our facilities. We continue to be impressed by the resolve and dedication. These attributes were once again put to the test with Hurricane Ian. Fortunately, no patient or employee was harmed during the storm, and with the help of our partners, all facilities with the exception of one are fully operational. In the face of disasters, whether a pandemic or a hurricane, the people of HCA Healthcare continue to shine. Normally on this call, we attempt to provide you with some early perspectives on the upcoming year. Currently, we have reasonable insights into certain aspects of our business, such as demand, which we believe will grow around 1% to 2% next year. We also expect payer mix and acuity to remain stable. However, with respect to inflation, we are less certain. We have responded to these unprecedented inflationary and macroeconomic pressures And we will continue to respond with our workforce initiatives and our financial resiliency program. But it is too early to judge the effectiveness of our response as these forces and the related governmental responses continue to evolve and impact various categories of our costs. Therefore, we will refrain from providing the typical early outlook for 2023 until we finish our planning process. in early January. By then, we will have seen another three months of performance to assess the overall environment as well as our response to it. I will close with this. We continue our work to position the company for long-term success and sustained stakeholder and shareholder value. Our strategic plan is designed to optimize the networks we have built over the years by resourcing them with better technology and analytics. new and innovative care models, and a highly trained workforce. We believe these efforts position us well to grow and effectively leverage our deployed capital. But more importantly, they position us better to deliver on our mission and provide higher quality care to our patients in a more efficient manner. Now let me turn the call over to Bill. Thank you.