Hanger, Inc.

Good morning and welcome to the Hanger First Quarter 2021 Earnings Conference Call. All participants will be in 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 telephone keypad. 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 Seth Frank, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead.

Good morning and thank you. Welcome to Hanger's first quarter 2021 earnings conference call. With us today are Vinit Asar, Hanger's President and Chief Executive Officer, and Thomas Crowley, Executive Vice President and Chief Financial Officer. Some of the information discussed today will include forward-looking statements in the meaning of the Private Securities Reform Act of 1995. These statements are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause Hanger's actual results to materially differ from those we discussed today. Those risks include, among others, matters we have identified in the forward-looking statements portion of our latest earnings release and in our filings with the SEC. Hanger disclaims any obligation to update forward-looking information discussed on the call. And now let's hand the call over to Bennett.

Thanks, Seth. Good morning, and thank you for joining Hanger's first quarter 2021 earnings call. We're pleased that the year is off to an encouraging start. Our teams nationwide continue to do an excellent job executing on our business plan. Hanger returned to growth in the first quarter of the year for both revenue and earnings, for the first time since the onset of COVID-19. We successfully overcame a number of challenges during the quarter, including prolonged severe weather conditions in February, as well as the effect of the post-holiday COVID surge. We grew revenue and achieved adjusted EBITDA ahead of our expectations, primarily due to favorable disallowances and cost management. Adjusted EBITDA cash flow also benefited from solid collection trends in both of our business segments. Our ability to execute in the current environment raises our confidence for the long term. That said, COVID remains a wild card and certainly figures into the thinking behind maintaining our outlook, despite the earnings upside this quarter. We view vaccination rates, tackling new variants, and continued public health measures as critical to the return of normal business conditions. Reviewing our consolidated first quarter results, net revenue totaled $237.5 million, growing 1.6% compared to the same period of 2020. Adjusted EBITDA was $13.5 million compared to 5.3 million in the prior year period. Looking at performance by business segment, patient care showed encouraging volume trends, particularly in the latter part of the quarter as the post-holiday infection surge faded in most of the country. Anger patient appointment levels, a key leading business indicator for us, rose to 97% of the same period last year. This reflects an improvement from the 88% appointment level experienced in the fourth quarter of 2020. In addition, we have reopened all patient care clinics that were temporarily closed, returning our operations to normal staffing levels, reflecting the continued improvement in demand for our services. Patient care segment net revenue grew 2.9%, a solid reversal from prior trends. Underlying same clinic growth on a day-adjusted basis was 1.4%. Also a notable positive swing from last year's COVID impacted trends. We are also keeping an eye on patient satisfaction measures as we return to full capacity. For the first quarter, our clinic net promoter score of 86 stayed consistent with what we saw at the end of 2020. We also experienced a return to a normalized mix for our major service categories within prosthetics and orthotics. Excluding the effective acquisitions, prosthetic revenue growth was 1% in the first quarter. Orthotics revenues also continued to improve and swing positive in Q1, growing 1.9%. Orthotics, including custom and other categories, posted a slightly higher category growth rate, while shoes and inserts were down slightly compared to the same quarter last year. We recently announced... the launch of a national cranial care network of clinicians for pediatric patients that is showing encouraging results and was the primary contributing factor to our custom orthotic growth. Overall for this segment, we are still anticipating additional recovery ahead in order to fully establish a return to normal as the pandemic subsides. Looking at the products and services segment, we are also pleased with our results. particularly in light of some of the transitory issues that impacted the business. Net revenues for this segment declined 4.1% in the first quarter compared to the prior year, a sequential improvement over the past few quarters. In contrast, we delivered adjusted EBITDA year-over-year growth in the segment of $1.8 million. This marks the second consecutive adjusted EBITDA growth quarter for products and services. Hanger's O&P distribution business declined in revenue by $1 million in the quarter. However, there were two fewer operating days in the first quarter of 2021, and as a result, we estimate revenues would have been flat after normalizing for operating days. That said, underlying these results is an O&P distribution business that continues to be an outstanding ambassador for the Hanger name and which provides the most optionality to clinicians across the industry in how they practice O&P. We also continue to boast additions to our product offerings and are seen increasingly as the highly reliable, differentiated, and value-added partner in the O&P supply chain to the rest of the O&P providers. I am pleased with the continued diversification of our client and vendor portfolio as it strengthens the future for our distribution business. Finally, Hanger Therapeutic Solutions Business continues to navigate the challenging COVID-affected SNF environment well. Revenue declined by less than a million dollars in the quarter. While skilled nursing facilities remain challenged on multiple fronts, the business is well positioned to assist these providers with rehabilitating patients faster through clinically robust protocols and specialized equipment. Entering what we anticipate will be a year of growth, I'll now turn to a few accomplishments and operational items of note from the first quarter. We held our first ever Hangar Live event in a virtual format and welcomed the entirety of our 4,900 employees to join us for two days of educational sessions on state-of-the-art clinical care, inspiring patient stories, keynotes, and leadership seminars. This event also set the tone we have established around diversity and inclusion. On a related note, we recently published Hanger's second annual ESG report. The information, which is available on our website, serves to provide investors a better understanding of how we view sustainability and the key priorities we've established in the business in areas identified by SASB, or the Sustainability Accounting Standards Board, relevant for healthcare services organizations. We are aligning our ESG priorities to our corporate values. Initial areas of focus include clinical outcomes, quality of care, data privacy and security, access to care, and sustainable human capital. We're excited about adding ESG as an additional mosaic for investors and all stakeholders to further assess our impact. Another key initiative is expanding Hanger's relationships with our partners in healthcare to continue to grow the evidence base of how best-in-class O&P care can positively affect patient outcomes and healthcare costs. During the first quarter, we announced the establishment of the Hanger Institute for Clinical Research and Education. The primary focus of the institute is to bring together all the available resources and experts across our healthcare environment to focus on leading-edge clinical research, evidence-based care, and professional education in O&P. We are particularly excited about the Institute as a platform to facilitate collaborations with medical and academic institutions, as well as those industry partners that share the same passion for patient outcomes as us. We are in the process of finding formal partnerships that together will enable and strengthen the Institute's ability to seek grants and carry out a transformational research agenda with surgeons, physicians, and therapists. These endeavors plus our community outreach programs such as patient education clinics and other engagement activities are all part of a core strategy to continue to advance the practice of O&P and its value as a core component of rehabilitative medicine. These initiatives are providing Hanger an additional benefit. and increasing and more visible M&A pipeline of quality independent providers looking to partner with us. We offer a clear value proposition to clinic operators that increasingly look at the landscape and consider the benefits of joining the industry leader. I am optimistic that as the year continues, we will be well positioned to accelerate the rate of acquisitions meaningfully. So in summary, we're off to a good start. Unfortunately, the pandemic is still with us, so we want to be judicious about when we declare all clear. We are confident, however, that as vaccination prevalence continues to rise and disease trends wane, we are well positioned to resume the trajectory of growth we began in the 2019 timeframe. I continue to be encouraged with the positive impact of the strategic investments we have made to date in the areas of patient engagement and clinical outcomes, as well as our focus on revenue cycle management and supply chain. Thank you for your continued interest as we reestablish our growth trajectory this year. And now Tom will give you the details on the financials. Tom?