Universal Health Services (UHS) Q2 2023 Earnings Call Transcript

For the period ending June 30, 2023

July 26, 2023 9:00 a.m. ET

Prepared Remarks

Questions and Answers

Call Participants

Prepared Remarks:

Operator

Good day, and thank you for standing by. Welcome to the Second Quarter 2023 Universal Health Services Earnings Conference Call. At this time, all participants are in a listen-only mode. After the speakers’ presentation, there will be a question-and-answer session. [Operator Instructions] Please be advised that today’s conference is being recorded.

I would now like to hand the conference over to your speaker today, Steve Filton, CFO. Please go ahead.

Steve Filton

Thank you, and good morning. Marc Miller is also joining us this morning. We welcome you to this review of Universal Health Services results for the second quarter ended June 30, 2023.

During the conference call, we'll be using words such as believes, expects, anticipates, estimates and similar words that represent forecasts, projections and forward-looking statements. I recommend a careful reading of the section on risk factors and forward-looking statements and Risk Factors in our Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2022, and our Form 10-Q for the quarter ended March 31, 2023.

We'd like to highlight just a couple of developments and business trends before opening the call up to questions. As discussed in our press release last night, the company reported net income attributable to UHS per diluted share of $2.42 for the second quarter of 2023. After adjusting for the impact of the item reflected on the supplemental schedule, as included with the press release, our adjusted net income attributable to UHS per diluted share was $2.53 for the quarter ended June 30, 2023.

Our acute hospitals experienced strong demand for their services in the second quarter with adjusted admissions increasing 7.7% over the prior year. Even though the volume growth was skewed somewhat to lower acuity procedures, overall revenue growth was still a very robust 9.7%. While overall surgical volumes were solid, increasing about 5% from the prior year quarter, there was a continuing shift from inpatient to outpatient. Meanwhile, the amount of premium pay in the second quarter was $75 million, reflecting approximately 10% to 12% decline from the amount in the previous several quarters. The continued robust increase in acute volumes is the major reason that premium pay has not declined further.

It's worth noting that our average hourly rate, which includes premium pay, was 4% lower than the second quarter of 2022. On a same-facility basis, EBITDA at our acute care hospitals increased 16% during the second quarter of 2023 as compared to the comparable prior year quarter.