{"id":19114,"date":"2023-04-21T15:58:57","date_gmt":"2023-04-21T15:58:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/hca-raises-2023-profit\/"},"modified":"2023-04-21T16:07:42","modified_gmt":"2023-04-21T16:07:42","slug":"hca-expects-surgical-recovery","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/hca-expects-surgical-recovery\/","title":{"rendered":"HCA expects surgical recovery to sustain on improved staffing, capacity"},"content":{"rendered":"

By Aditya Samal and Leroy Leo<\/p>\n

(Reuters) -HCA Healthcare Inc said it expects a recovery in surgical procedures to persist through the year for the hospital operator as staffing almost reaches pre-pandemic levels and allows it to widen bed and surgical capacity.<\/p>\n

The industry bellwether on Friday reported better-than-expected results and raised its forecasts for 2023 on improved staffing, lifting its shares up nearly 5%.<\/p>\n

Last year, a spate of resignations by healthcare staff due to pandemic-related fatigue forced hospitals to pay large premiums for new hires, but first-quarter costs for HCA neared pre-pandemic levels as workers rejoined the force.<\/p>\n

The company had instances of not being able to open all operating rooms due to the staffing constraints, CEO Samuel Hazen said on an investor conference call.<\/p>\n

“As our labor situation continues to get better, we think that will allow us to open up more surgical capacity, and we believe the demand in the market is still there.”<\/p>\n

The hospital bellwether’s upbeat earnings and commentary boosted shares of rival operators, with Tenet Healthcare rising 6%, Universal Health Services up 4% and Community Health Systems gaining 13%.<\/p>\n

HCA reported an adjusted profit of $4.53 per share, according to Refinitiv calculations, compared with estimates of $3.93 per share. <\/p>\n

“These impressive trends in the first quarter appear to be setting HCA up for a stronger year than anticipated, and management has materially increased its outlook for 2023,” Morningstar analyst Julie Utterback said.<\/p>\n

HCA now sees its 2023 adjusted profit in the range of $17.25 to $18.55 per share, above its previous forecast of $16.40 to $17.60. It also raised its revenue forecast range to $62.5 billion to $64.5 billion.<\/p>\n

(Reporting by Aditya Samal and Leroy Leo in Bengaluru; Editing by Shinjini Ganguli)<\/p>\n

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By Aditya Samal and Leroy Leo (Reuters) -HCA Healthcare Inc said it expects a recovery in surgical procedures to persist through the year for the hospital operator as staffing almost reaches pre-pandemic levels and allows it to widen bed and surgical capacity. The industry bellwether on Friday reported better-than-expected results and raised its forecasts for […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":19115,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"spay_email":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1213],"tags":[1223],"class_list":["post-19114","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-u-s-business","tag-updated"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-content\/uploads\/Reuters_Direct_Media\/USOnlineReportBusinessNews\/tagreuters.com2023binary_LYNXMPEJ3K0DS-VIEWIMAGE.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19114","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19114"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19114\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":19448,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19114\/revisions\/19448"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/19115"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19114"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19114"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/lynettelockhart.com\/client\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19114"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}