Dive Brief:
- Shares of hospital chain Tenet Healthcare rose more than 3% Tuesday morning after reporting its third quarter results Monday evening showing broad-based volume growth.
- Comparing hospital-to-hospital performance, Tenet reported a 3.6% increase in admissions and a slight uptick for inpatient surgeries (1.9%) and outpatient visits (1.6%).
- The Dallas-based company reported a net loss of $232 million for the quarter attributable to the company's common shareholders, compared to a loss of $9 million a year earlier.
Dive Insight:
Tenet CEO Ronald Rittenmeyer touted the results on Tuesday's call with investors and said the company is raising its outlook for the year based on the numbers.
"We had a very positive third quarter with performance improvement in each of our operating segments," Rittenmeyer said in a statement.
It's the third consecutive quarter of volume growth, executives said Tuesday.
Rittenmeyer attributed positive trends over the past few years to a strong leadership team. "Tenet is in a much different place than it was two years ago," he said.
Same-hospital patient revenue grew 5.8% and surgical revenue increased 6.9% on a same-facility basis.
Commercial volume trends were also very positive, executives said.
Still, they said the company faced more than $50 million in unanticipated headwinds including closures and costs related to Hurricane Dorian, lower California provider fee revenues and costs related to a nursing strike at 12 facilities.
The company is raising its outlook for adjusted earnings per share for the year. It expects adjusted diluted earnings per share from continuing operations of $2.25 to $2.91 for the year.
The company's other segments also showed growth.
Conifer, the revenue cycle management unit, reported adjusted EBITDA of $90 million, an 11% increase from the previous year period. Tenet announced earlier this year it will spin off Conifer into an independent publicly traded company by the second quarter of 2021.
USPI, the outpatient surgical business, has a steady pipeline of health systems willing to send patients to the outpatient facilities, executives said during the call. During the third quarter, the company added three health systems and expects to reach a total of seven by end of year.