Profits up at HCA, ratings down at Mission
BY PETER H. LEWIS, Asheville Watchdog
HCA Healthcare, which owns and operates Mission Hospital in Asheville, reported this month that it made $1.4 billion in profits for the first three months of 2021, more than double the amount for the same period last year.
The new figures follow HCA’s report in February that annual profits rose to a record $3.8 billion in 2020, despite the pandemic, based on what the company called “solid cost management.”
In a proxy statement filed last month with the Securities and Exchange Commission, HCA stated its primary objective is “providing the highest quality health care to our patients, while making a positive impact on the communities in which we operate.” But it rewards top executives far more on meeting financial performance targets than on meeting quality of care metrics.
Dive Brief:
Hospital giant HCA Healthcare reported a profit of $1.4 billion in the first quarter thanks to highly acute inpatient volumes, better payer mix and a rebound in surgical and outpatient volumes in March.
That s more than double the Nashville-based system s profit the same time last year, and comes despite sluggish admissions due to the ongoing effects of COVID-19.
On a call with investors Thursday morning on the financial results, HCA leadership said they expected volumes to recover throughout 2021, pointing at falling COVID-19 cases, but said it s too early to forecast the pacing of that recovery. The for-profit operator raised its full-year guidance as a result of the quarterly performance and the deferral of Medicare sequestration cuts through the end of the year. Shares were up more than 3% in morning trading following the results.
Operator
Welcome to the HCA Healthcare first-quarter 2021 earnings conference call. Today s call is being recorded. At this time, for opening remarks and introductions, I d like to turn the call over to the vice president of investor relations, Mr. Mark Kimbrough.
Please go ahead, sir.
Vice President of Investor Relations
All right. Thank you, Cara. 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 afterward. Before I turn the call over to Sam and Bill, let me remind everyone that should today s call contain any forward-looking statements, they are based upon management s current expectations. Numerous risks, uncertainties, and other factors may cause actual results to differ materially from these from those that might be expressed today. More information on forward-looking statements and these factors are listed in today s
Health-insurer and hospital CEOs scored big paydays in 2020, a year defined by the pandemic.
Six out of eight CEOs made more last year than in 2019 on stock options and awards.
The paydays came as big insurers and some health systems grew profits despite COVID-19 challenges.
The CEOs of some of the biggest healthcare companies brought home tens of millions more in pay in 2020, despite the toll the COVID-19 pandemic took on the US economy at large.
Sam Hazen, the top executive at HCA Healthcare, the largest investor-owned hospital chain in the country, pocketed $83.6 million last year more than four times what he made in 2019 according to an Insider analysis of the company s financial documents.
Owners of Hospital Conglomerate Made Billions as Health Care Workers Lacked PPE
Nurses stage a protest with support from the registered nurses union, SEIU Local 121RN, outside the West Hills Hospital on June 18, 2020, in West Hills, California.
FREDERIC J. BROWN / AFP via Getty Images
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Not everyone is suffering during the pandemic.
The Frist family of Tennessee are the founders and biggest shareholders of Hospital Corporation of America (HCA), the largest for-profit hospital conglomerate in the U.S. Thomas F. Frist Jr. and his family have seen their personal wealth increase from $7.5 billion on March 18, 2020 to $15.6 billion on March 8, 2021, an increase of $8.1 billion or 108 percent, according to an analysis by the Institute for Policy Studies.