HCA Healthcare, Inc.

Welcome to the HCA Healthcare First Quarter 2023 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 and 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 ACA Health Care, Inc. is included in today's press 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. All right.

Thank you, Frank, and good morning. Thank you for joining our call. The operational momentum we had at the end of the last year continued into the first quarter of 2023. The company produced solid earnings that reflected strong demand for our services and improvements in our operating costs, in particular contract labor expenses. For the quarter, diluted earnings per share, excluding losses on sales of facilities, grew by almost 20% to $4.93. Adjusted EBITDA grew close to 8%. Same facility volumes across the company were strong in the first quarter. Admissions grew 4.4% year over year. Non-COVID admissions were up 12%. Our inpatient business continued to be supported by strong acuity and a favorable payer mix. Inpatient surgeries increased 3.6%. Same facility equivalent admissions increased 7.5%. This was driven by emergency room visits, which grew 10%, and outpatient surgeries, which grew 5%. Other outpatient categories also grew, including outpatient cardiology procedures, which increased 7%. The demand increase was broad-based across most of the company's footprint and service lines, contributing the same facility revenue growth of 5% as compared to the prior year. With respect to our people agenda, we saw continued improvements across virtually all metrics. The improvement in turnover rates accelerated from the fourth quarter, and we ended the quarter close to pre-pandemic levels. Registered nurse hiring also improved in the quarter. Hiring increased almost 19% compared to the previous four-quarter average. These positive results helped reduce contract labor costs 21% compared to last year. We continue to invest in our people through compensation programs, increased training, and innovative care models. We believe these programs advanced our capabilities to provide high-quality care to our patients. Once again, our colleagues demonstrated a remarkable ability to adapt and deliver value across all stakeholder groups. I want to thank them for their dedication, their hard work, and their overall effectiveness. During the quarter, we continued to experience periodic capacity constraints that prevented us from fully operating our capacity. As compared to the fourth quarter, instances where we could not accept patients from other hospitals declined 25% and represented 1.5% of total admissions in the quarter, which was down from 2% in the fourth quarter. While we are pleased with this improved trend, it still remains above pre-pandemic levels. To close with this, we remain encouraged by the backdrop of strong demand that we saw in our markets. We intend to maintain our disciplined approach to executing our strategic and capital allocation plans as we push through the rest of this year. And lastly, we believe the investments we are making in our network, our people, and our technology will provide us with the necessary resources to improve our services and provide high-quality care to our patients. Given the strong results in the quarter and the favorable factors we expect with demand, you will see that we have increased our guidance for the year. With that, I'll turn the call to Bill for more details.