Community Health Systems, Inc. (NYSE:CYH) Q1 2024 Earnings Conference Call April 25, 2024 11:00 AM ET

Company Participants

Anton Hie - Vice President, Investor Relations
Tim Hingtgen - Chief Executive Officer
Kevin Hammons - President and Chief Financial Officer
Lynn Simon - President, Healthcare Innovation and Chief Medical Officer

Conference Call Participants

Jason Cassorla - Citi
Brian Tanquilut - Jefferies
Ben Hendrix - RBC
A.J. Rice - UBS
Andrew Mok - Barclays
Josh Raskin - Nephron Research

Operator

Good day and welcome to the Community Health Systems First Quarter 2024 Earnings Conference Call. [Operator Instructions] Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Anton Hie, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Anton Hie

Thank you, Chuck. Good morning, everyone and welcome to Community Health Systems’ first quarter 2024 conference call. Joining me on today’s call are Tim Hingtgen, Chief Executive Officer; Kevin Hammons, President and Chief Financial Officer; and Dr. Lynn Simon, President, Healthcare Innovation and Chief Medical Officer.

Before we begin, I must remind everyone that this conference call may contain certain forward-looking statements, including all statements that do not relate solely to historical or current facts. These forward-looking statements are subject to a number of known and unknown risks which are described in headings such as Risk Factors in our annual report on Form 10-K and other reports filed with or furnished to the SEC. Actual results may differ significantly from those expressed in any forward-looking statements in today’s discussion. We do not intend to update any of these forward-looking statements.

Yesterday afternoon, we issued a press release with our financial statements and definitions and calculations of adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EPS. We’ve also posted a supplemental slide presentation on our website. All calculations we will discuss exclude impairment expense as well as gains or losses on the sale of businesses, expense from government and other legal matters and related costs, expense from business transformation costs and expenses related to employee termination benefits and other restructuring charges.

With that said, I’ll turn the call over to Tim Hingtgen, Chief Executive Officer.

Tim Hingtgen

Thanks, Anton. Good morning and thank you for joining our first quarter conference call. At CHS, 2024 is off to a good start with the solid operating and financial results achieved in the first quarter. Same-store net revenue increased 5.7% compared to the first quarter of 2023. Same-store admissions increased 3.8% and adjusted admissions were up 1.9%. The prior year comp was our most challenging of the year with strong same-store admissions growth of 4.8% and adjusted admissions of 9.4%. So we were very pleased to see continued strong demand. Same-store ED visits increased 3.4% in the quarter, and surgery slightly increased – in the first quarters of both 2023 and 2024, surgical volume was well above the first quarter of 2019, beating our pre-COVID baseline by approximately 10%.