Community Health Systems Q4 2024 Earnings Call Transcript

Quartr
Provided by Quartr
February 19, 2025
Skip to Participants
Operator

Good day, and welcome to the Community Health System's Fourth Quarter and Full Year twenty twenty four Earnings Conference Call.

Operator

All participants will be in a listen only mode. Please note this event is being recorded. I would now like to turn the conference over to Mr. Anton Hai, Vice President of Investor Relations. Please go ahead, sir.

Anton Hie
Anton Hie
VP Investor Relations at Community Health Systems

Thank you, Chuck. Good morning, everyone. Welcome to Community Health System's fourth quarter twenty twenty four conference call. Joining me on today's call are Tim Hinchens, Chief Executive Officer Kevin Hammonds, President and Chief Financial Officer and Doctor. Miguel Benet, President of Clinical Operations and Chief Medical Officer.

Anton Hie
Anton Hie
VP Investor Relations at Community Health Systems

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.

Anton Hie
Anton Hie
VP Investor Relations at Community Health Systems

We've also posted a supplemental slide presentation on our website. All calculations that we will discuss exclude gains from early extinguishment of debt, impairment gains or losses on the sale of businesses, expense from government and other legal matters and related costs, expense from business transformation costs, expense related to employee termination benefits and other restructuring charges and change in estimate for professional claims liability. With that said, I will turn the call over to Tim Pinchon, Chief Executive Officer.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

Thank you, Anton, and thanks, everyone, for joining our fourth quarter earnings conference call. I want to highlight some key performance measures for the full year and later Kevin will cover results for the quarter.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

I'll start today with the strong growth we are achieving across our CHS affiliated health systems, resulting in record same store volume levels for the full year 2024. Versus prior year, same store admissions increased 3.2%, same store adjusted admissions increased 2.7% and same store surgeries increased 1.3%. Growth like this is enabled by our capital investments, strong capacity management and the pursuit of strategic value generating opportunities across our core portfolio. In 2024, that included significant expansion in outpatient access such as primary care, specialty practices and urgent care centers. In addition to de novo projects, we acquired 10 urgent care clinics in Tucson, Arizona, broadening our geographic footprint and ability to care for more patients in this market.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

We opened two new freestanding emergency rooms in fast growing communities, bringing our current count to 19 freestanding EDs across the portfolio. We ended the year with a total of 47 ambulatory surgery centers. Within our markets, we are very well positioned for outpatient surgery. And as a result, same store AFC cases increased 14% last year. We also completed two major campus expansion projects, including new inpatient bed towers, emergency department and surgical services capacity.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

These projects have further improved our competitive position in our Knoxville, Tennessee and Baldwin County, Alabama markets and both continue to ramp up nicely. And we invested in procedural capacity such as expanding and upgrading cardiac cath labs and other procedural spaces in several health systems last year. Same store net operating revenues for the year increased 5.5% and adjusted EBITDA for the year improved 6%, which includes the benefit from supplemental state directed payment programs in the fourth quarter, which Kevin will discuss in more detail later. We also saw improvements in both labor and supplies as a percentage of net revenue. Turning to our portfolio.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

In 2024, we completed divestitures in Cleveland, Tennessee and Statesboro, North I'm sorry, and in North Carolina. We also plan to finalize other announced divestitures in the first quarter: ShorePoint Health in Florida and Lake Norman Regional Medical Center in North Carolina. And we are in discussions with which will likely result in additional strategic divestitures in 2025. We anticipate the sale of these assets will generate meaningful proceeds and deleveraging value. While 2024 was a very good year in many regards, it was not without challenges.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

On our last call, we mentioned the impact of downgrades and denials, which continue to be a troubling trend for healthcare providers. However, that situation has shown some stabilization since the third quarter. Our utilization management and physician advisor programs are performing as expected as these clinicians advocate for our patients to receive the appropriate care in appropriate settings and as we pursue payment for those services. Medical specialist fees and subsidies continue to be a pressure point, particularly in anesthesia services. To mitigate this trend, we have scaled our proven capabilities for managing in sourced hospital based services beyond hospitalist and emergency medicine into a growing number of anesthesia programs.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

In the fourth quarter, for instance, we rapidly insourced anesthesiology in one of our larger markets, a move which we are confident will lead to better, more integrated care and services in the most cost effective manner. We anticipate further expansion of internally managed hospital based provider services in 2025, which is leading to greater provider satisfaction and stability, positive quality outcomes for our patients and the opportunity for cost savings. This is just one of many strategic initiatives highlighting how CHS is now a more agile organization prepared and equipped to rapidly adjust to and overcome macro trends and industry headwinds as they arise. Now I'd like to spend a minute on our clinical achievements in 2024. We are proud of our advancements across many measures, including reductions in risk adjusted mortality rates and hospital acquired infections and further advancements in patient safety.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

By the end of 2024, we reached our best ever reduction in the serious safety event rate, down ninety percent from our baseline in 2013. We also saw notable gains in our patient experience measures. These results are made possible by the skilled and compassionate teams working across our organization. Our work to recruit and retain a highly capable workforce continues to yield impressive results. In 2024, overall employee retention was particularly high and we achieved our best retention rate for registered nurses in the past five years.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

I want to thank our frontline caregivers and support teams, our local leaders and our corporate teams for all they do every day to ensure quality care for our patients. We are proud of our progress throughout 2024. We believe we accomplished what we said we would do and finish the year strong by building momentum that we can carry forward. We look forward to even more progress in 2025. Looking ahead, we expect our investments will continue to produce incremental growth.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

We are intensely focused on ensuring the availability of access and capacity for all of our services to help our patients get the care they need conveniently and without delay. Numerous initiatives in 2025 are designed to enhance appointment scheduling, care navigation and to help facilitate needed follow-up services, all of which support our patients and can drive additional growth. With our enterprise resource planning platform now fully implemented, we have more insights and data than ever before. These tools can help drive efficiencies, streamline workflows and reduce costs. And this year, we will continue to leverage partnerships and innovation to further advance patient care and support our workforce.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

As always, we remain dedicated to delivering high quality healthcare services for the patients and communities who count on us every day. With that, let me turn the call over to Kevin Hammond, who will provide more context about our fourth quarter and 2024 results and guidance for the year ahead. Kevin?

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Thank you, Tim, and good morning, everyone. We continue to see strong demand for care in our markets, leading to the best same store revenue growth of the year, up 6.5% in the fourth quarter on a 3.4% increase in inpatient admissions and 3.1% growth in adjusted admissions. Same store ED visits were up 1% and surgeries were up 0.9%. In addition to the strong volumes, same store revenue growth reflects a 3.3% increase in net revenue per adjusted admission, driven by rate growth including the Medicare inpatient rate update and incremental reimbursement under Medicaid supplemental payment programs, partly offset by lower acuity. Adjusted EBITDA for the fourth quarter was $428,000,000 compared with $386,000,000 in the prior year period.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Margin for the quarter was 13.1%, up from 12.1% in the prior year period. For the full year of 2024, adjusted EBITDA totaled $1,540,000,000 dollars compared with $1,453,000,000 dollars in 2023, with margin of 12.2%, an improvement of 60 basis points from the prior year. During the quarter, we recognized an incremental net benefit of approximately $40,000,000 from Medicaid supplemental payment programs versus prior guidance, primarily relating to the approval and recognition of the New Mexico program for the period July 1 through 12/31/2024. As Tim noted, the impact of payer downgrades and denials has stabilized for us since calling it out in the third quarter, thanks to our ongoing utilization management efforts and physician advisor program. However, we will remain vigilant in our work and advocacy regarding this troubling trend that is affecting all healthcare providers.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Turning to expense management, we were again pleased with our performance on labor costs with average hourly rate up approximately 4.7% year over year in the fourth quarter, reflecting an increase in the number of employed physicians and approximately 4% for the full year 2024 consistent with our expectations. Contract labor spend was $36,000,000 in the fourth quarter, down another $5,000,000 sequentially and bringing the full year 2024 total to $170,000,000 down an impressive 36% from full year 2023, reflecting our success with recruitment and retention. We also continue to see improvement on supplies expense, which declined 50 basis points year over year to 15.5% of net revenues in the fourth quarter and for the full year 2024 declined 60 basis points to 15.4%. This reduction in supplies expense as a percent of net revenue reflects some early wins in our management of supplies as a result of implementing our ERP, increased reimbursement from Medicaid supplemental programs as well as the growth of admissions outpacing our surgical growth for the year. Offsetting these gains during the fourth quarter, we experienced somewhat sharper increase in medical specialist fees versus expectations and an acceleration from the prior previous three quarters.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Specifically, medical specialist fees exceeded expectations increasing approximately $20,000,000 on a same store basis or approximately 12% year over year to $170,000,000 in the fourth quarter and for the full year totaled $640,000,000 up 10.9% on a same store basis from 2023. As Tim noted, we rapidly brought anesthesia care in house in one of our larger markets and also took over operations when a regional contractor began experiencing severe financial distress, both of which we view as strategic investments that will lead to better results and visibility over the longer term, despite the upfront costs and short term margin dilution. While we have made good progress with our in sourcing initiatives, we anticipate further pressure in medical specialist fees over the near term. In 2025, we anticipate these costs to grow in excess of typical inflationary trends, but still well below the spikes that we saw in 2022 and 2023. Cash flows from operations were $216,000,000 for the fourth quarter, up from $90,000,000 in the fourth quarter of twenty twenty three and $480,000,000 for the full year of 2024, which was consistent with our guidance for $400,000,000 to $500,000,000 and up from the $210,000,000 in 2023.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

This year over year growth in cash flow primarily reflects higher adjusted EBITDA, a reduction in cash interest and improvements in working capital, including the conversion of accounts receivable. For the full year 2024, we deployed $360,000,000 on capital expenditures, in line with our guidance and down from $460,000,000 in 2023. Transitioning to divestitures during the fourth quarter, we completed one small divestiture of Davis Regional Medical Center in Statesville, North Carolina and announced agreements to divest our other remaining North Carolina facility, Lake Norman Regional Medical Center in Mooresville, as well as the Shorepoint Health System in Florida. We anticipate both of these transactions will close in the first quarter of twenty twenty five, providing nearly $550,000,000 in gross proceeds. These transactions reflect attractive double digit multiples on trailing EBITDA, leading to further deleveraging.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

In addition to these previously announced transactions, we continue to advance discussions on additional divestitures that we expect to announce in the near future, also at very attractive multiples. All told, these pending and expected transactions should generate more than $1,000,000,000 in total proceeds, which we expect to lead to meaningful deleveraging and increased shareholder value. At year end, net debt to trailing adjusted EBITDA was 7.4 times, improved from 7.6 times in the prior quarter and 7.9 times at the end of twenty twenty three. We continue to believe we have more than adequate liquidity to meet our needs going forward with approximately 500,000,000 of borrowing capacity under our ABL along with available working capital and pending asset sale proceeds. We look forward to providing additional details on these transactions as they become available.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Finishing up 2024, we completed the implementation of our new ERP and workflows under Project Empower as scheduled. The final phase, which involve transitioning onto new workforce management tools for HR, payroll and timekeeping, allows us to move beyond the investment and implementation phases and begin focusing on optimizing our use of the new tools and realizing tangible benefits throughout the remainder of 2025. We estimate that as a result of this work, we will save between $40,000,000 and $60,000,000 this coming year. Moving on to our initial guidance for 2025, we anticipate net revenue of $12,200,000,000 to $12,600,000,000 adjusted EBITDA of $1,450,000,000 dollars to $1,600,000,000 cash flow from operations of $600,000,000 to $700,000,000 and capital expenditures of $350,000,000 to $400,000,000 Our guidance does not include directed payment program reimbursement for New Mexico or Tennessee as those programs have not yet been approved by CMS for 2025. If those programs get approved for 2025, we believe it will add an incremental $100,000,000 to $125,000,000 to our annual guided run rate of EBITDA.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Likewise, we have not considered in our guidance any additional divestitures beyond those that have already been announced. Beyond those that have already been announced. If completed, any such transactions would reduce net revenues and EBITDA in 2025, the amount of which is dependent on timing of completion, but would also allow further reductions in our leverage and would therefore be accretive to our equity value. This concludes our prepared remarks. So at this time, we will turn the call back over to the operator for Q and A.

Operator

We will now begin the question and answer session. And the first question will come from Brian Tanquilut with Jefferies. Please go ahead.

Brian Tanquilut
Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc

Hey, good morning guys and congrats on the quarter. Maybe Kevin, my first question for you as I think about the guidance for 2025, maybe if you can just help us bridge 2024 to 2025? I know there's so many moving pieces here. And then if there are any specific callouts for one timers that we need to consider maybe for Q1.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Sure. Thanks, Brian. Appreciate it. So as I mentioned, the guidance does not include Tennessee, New Mexico DPP and only includes the announced divestitures. So maybe to do a high level bridge starting with EBITDA where we finished up 2024 to $1,540,000,000 I think we could take out approximately $40,000,000 of DPP funds that were recognized in 2024 in the fourth quarter.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

That was the New Mexico piece. Take out $50,000,000 to $60,000,000 related to the announced divestitures as we go in. So roughly, call it, $100,000,000 reduction. Add in organic growth of $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 in 2025 and that gets you back to midpoint of our guide of about $1,525,000,000 So even without the DPP, at that midpoint, it would still be deleveraging given that we have about $550,000,000 of proceeds coming in related to those divestitures. And then factoring in if or when Tennessee and New Mexico get approved and we do fully expect them to get approved, that would add an additional $100,000,000 to $125,000,000 to that annual run rate of EBITDA.

Brian Tanquilut
Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc

Got you. Okay. That makes sense. And then maybe, Tim, as I think about some of the things that you've done in 2024, you're still looking to do some divestitures here, but you've also added some urgent care locations. Just curious how we should be thinking about where you stand today on kind of the strategic moves that you still want to do?

Brian Tanquilut
Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc

And I know you mentioned that you've got a couple of deals here in the pipeline, but once we get past that, I mean, how should we be thinking about kind of like the moves that we should expect out of you guys?

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

Sure. Thanks, Brian. I'm happy to shed some color on that. Obviously, we're pleased with our ability to invest in and grow the core portfolio. We've been speaking to our investable opportunities for the last several years and it's always good to see that pull through in terms of the volume and earnings progression.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

I think we've called this out in a number of occasions, but it's a smaller portfolio generating roughly a similar amount of net revenue as three or four years ago. So we know that our investments are yielding the intended outcomes, caring for more patients and driving that type of growth. Now in terms of where we go next, we still have some runway left on obviously some past capital investments, particularly around our expansion projects. I called out that they're ramping up nicely that by any stretch of the imagination, we built them for further growth capabilities in the quarters ahead. Also, we've also talked extensively about where we're investing our capital dollars and it goes beyond just inpatient capacity and procedural capacity on our campuses.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

They're really driving that access point strategy. So we have a pipeline of the incremental ASC expansions or de novo projects underway. We also have more freestanding ED projects in flight, some of them going through certificate of need processes. So we still see a good portion of portfolio still having investable opportunities for more organic growth. In terms of the post acute and behavioral health side of the business, we think we've done a nice job of growing that side of the business.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

We believe there's also more expansion opportunities and growth opportunities in that regard. And then the last thing I'll put out there, again speaking to where we have insights into the business, beyond just the ERP implementation of seeing where we can better manage the business. For the last, I'd say, seven or eight years, we've leveraged the transfer center rather extensively to always help us identify new opportunities for service line expansion. We continue to see in the majority of our transfer center markets the ability to expand our service areas by taking in patients from further out as we add those specialties. So we don't believe we've reached the end of that road either.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

So again, a lot of growth opportunities on an organic basis.

Brian Tanquilut
Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc

Hey, Tim, maybe if I may follow-up, just as I think about your mid teens EBITDA margin guidance and you did 13% -ish coming out of Q4. So putting all this, the things that you mentioned together and then maybe considering medical specialist fees, what's that line of sight like and what will it take for you to hit that mid teens target number?

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

I'll let Kevin start with the answer kind of where we peg that midterm guidance. I'll add a few things at the end, which I think tied back to my comments.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Sure. There's a couple of things we've had, a little bit of drag with some medical specialties, which we even though we do believe they're continuing to increase, we are getting some stabilization. Our work with ERP and getting that project completed, which has also been a little bit of a drag on us, but should turn into a tailwind. And with the functionality and the work and visibility we have and improving decision support, we think we can take out some material costs. We've made some what we believe to be really good investments in capital growth projects.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

And then we continue to believe we can get some leverage on both acuity and payer mix as some of our markets grow.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

Yes. And I would layer onto that opportunities for margin expansion, obviously, over the next couple of years, hopefully with some moderation in inflation and continued strengthening in payer mix and rates on the commercial side of the business. Obviously, there's some risk embedded with the governmental programs. But in general, targeting the payer mix through our access point strategy has worked out really well for us. We also see some opportunities, as I said, to ramp up these projects and improve our fixed cost leverage.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

So I think that will pull through in terms of hitting that midterm target as well.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

And maybe a last point I'd make is, as we continue to delever and have opportunities for deleveraging, we are getting to a positive free cash flow, able to get our debt down and lower our cash interest, even if we aren't at those mid teen margins being positive on those other things will generate sufficient cash flow and sufficient EBITDA to continue to progress and make the investments that we need.

Brian Tanquilut
Equity Research Analyst - Healthcare Services at Jefferies & Company Inc

Awesome. Thank you guys.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

Thank you.

Operator

The next question will come from Ben Hendricks with RBC Capital Markets. Please go ahead.

Ben Hendrix
Ben Hendrix
Equity Research - Healthcare Services and Managed Care at RBC Capital Markets

Great. Thank you guys very much. Just wanted to follow-up on some of your thoughts on DPP.

Ben Hendrix
Ben Hendrix
Equity Research - Healthcare Services and Managed Care at RBC Capital Markets

First of all, in 4Q, the $40,000,000 from New Mexico DPP that you recognized, just wanted it seems to be about twice what you'd expected. Does that reflect just conservatism around this program initially versus your expectations? Or was there something structurally that changed that drove that outperformance? And then just secondly, the exclusion of DPP and guidance suggests a more cautious stance than what we heard back in October. Clearly, just wanted to get your latest thoughts on your assessment of the risk of these programs and how you're thinking about them under the new administration?

Ben Hendrix
Ben Hendrix
Equity Research - Healthcare Services and Managed Care at RBC Capital Markets

Thanks.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Sure. Thanks, Ben. We did not include the New Mexico or Tennessee programs in our guidance in 2024. So although we've been working closely with the state and following very closely with that program, we weren't sure of the timing of approval, so we did not include it in the guidance. It was approved, I believe, in December.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

So we were able to recognize and we recognized the period from July 1 through December. So two quarters worth recognized all in the fourth quarter. I think kind of at the end of the day, what we had provided on an outlook back after the third quarter was those two states combined, we believe should contribute about $100,000,000 to $125,000,000 to an annual run rate of EBITDA. We still believe that that's the right number, so it's in line. New Mexico is really in line with our expectations around that.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

But we just did not have it in the guidance for 4Q because of timing and uncertainty around the approval process. Going forward, again, we do expect those programs to get approved. New Mexico, which is basically a renewal and then Tennessee to get approved here. Right now, as I understand, there's a freeze on communications from CMS until we get confirmation of the secretary and leadership there. But that should be coming hopefully soon.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

And we don't see that there is probably going to be a big headwind. We believe these programs will continue relatively in their current form going forward. They've been successful programs. Many states actually there's been bipartisan support in both red states and blue states. And if I think about the current administration and where some of these programs are used to a high degree in states like Texas and Florida and more recently Mississippi, Tennessee also being a red state that has applied for one, I don't see that they will not be approved going forward.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

Yes. And then I'll add on to that. I think Kevin is spot on. Obviously, Medicaid has traditionally been an underfunded payer source for us. So these programs are critically important to sustaining the level of services to the Medicaid population.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

And irrespective of whether it's a red state or a blue state, giving people coverage and access to healthcare is such a critical issue for their well-being, but also just from I guess I'll say from a political agenda as well, making sure that we're not taking things away from people that are so important to them, especially as we transition to the new administration. I do think in terms of the programs that we're doing a lot of work around lobbying activities, obviously making sure that the reason why these programs are important is clearly understood by our elected officials. And as Kevin said, we've had broad support in our discussions with many of them to get these programs adjusted or modified to strengthen the access to healthcare in their communities. So we hope that bodes well for us going forward in terms of the durability of the supplemental programs.

Ben Hendrix
Ben Hendrix
Equity Research - Healthcare Services and Managed Care at RBC Capital Markets

Thank you very much.

Operator

The next question will come from A. J. Rice with UBS. Please go ahead.

A.J. Rice
A.J. Rice
Managing Director at UBS Group

Hi, everybody. Thanks for the question. On the organic growth of $75,000,000 to $100,000,000 is this part of the bridge you talked about earlier. Do you mind just giving us some sense of what you're thinking of for same store revenues, same store volumes, same store margins

A.J. Rice
A.J. Rice
Managing Director at UBS Group

perhaps?

A.J. Rice
A.J. Rice
Managing Director at UBS Group

I know you've had a slight uptick in the overall margin, but I don't think that teases out what the same store number is. I apologize if I missed it, but just some metrics around what you think the underlying same store portfolio is doing?

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Sure. Thanks, A. J. So in terms of kind of volume, we're looking at 2% to 3% volume growth in 2025, similar in pricing. So you can think about net revenue growing in the mid single digit area, contributing.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Margin wise, slight increase in same store margin is more of that organic growth we would expect to flow through to the bottom line. In terms of some inflationary trends, we're thinking about something in the neighborhood of 3.75% on salaries and wages. That's a little bit less than 2024, but still not back to where we had previously thought. It's something probably in the 3% range on most other expenses from an inflationary trend. With the exception of medical specialist fees, we're probably looking at and we budgeted for an increase in the 8% to 12% range on medical specialist fees.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

It was up 12% this year or I'm sorry, 10.9% for the full year. And so we're kind of budgeting in that 8% to 12%. And then on ERP, to help offset some of those inflationary increases, we're looking at some offsetting savings as a result of our ERP ERP work and now having that fully implemented in the $40,000,000 to $60,000,000 range.

A.J. Rice
A.J. Rice
Managing Director at UBS Group

Okay. That's helpful. And then just not to belabor the DPP program questions, but some of your peers felt like Tennessee got approved at least for the six month stub in 2024. It doesn't sound like you booked any of that either in 2024 or in your guidance for 2025. Can you comment on that?

A.J. Rice
A.J. Rice
Managing Director at UBS Group

And then also, I know for some time you're one that has some major states that have not yet adopted DPP programs or at least have not upgraded DPP programs to the extent that they might and specifically people typically call out Alabama, Indiana and Arkansas. Any update on where those stand at this point?

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Yes. I can give you an update on those. So Tennessee in January, we did get word that the program in Tennessee was approved, at least the structure of the program, but the funding for Tennessee's DPP program has not yet been approved. So we're just being prudent and conservative in our guidance without the funding being approved and the freeze on communications coming out of Washington or out of CMS, we decided not to put that in our guidance. But again, fully expect that that funding does get approved.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Tennessee, the TennCare program was a block grant program. So I think there was an additional level of approval that was needed or a waiver for that going forward and we're just waiting on that final step. In terms of additional states, we do have some pretty meaningful states, Indiana, Tennessee and Arkansas and Alaska, which do not have programs, do not have PPP programs or at least not fully implemented. Indiana is probably the farthest along, although no certainty of where that ends up. We do know that the state legislature is considering it.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

They're in session right now and there's a plan that's been presented for them for approval. So that is farthest along. We are in discussions in Alabama and Arkansas. I would say that they're a little farther behind or maybe said differently, they're at the earlier stages of considering and developing plans in those states, but all of those states have certainly expressed interest in taking a look at these programs and looking for additional Medicaid funding through these. We view these programs really as just part of Medicaid funding.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Overall, we typically consider Medicaid or delivery of Medicaid business at a loss. These programs help bridge that gap as part of the reimbursement for Medicaid. And I know the states are looking for some additional money. So we would expect some potential there, but Alabama and Arkansas probably not in 2025, that's probably a 2026 is the earliest.

A.J. Rice
A.J. Rice
Managing Director at UBS Group

Okay. Thanks a lot.

Operator

The next question will come from Andrew Mok with Barclays. Please go ahead.

Andrew Mok
Andrew Mok
Director at Barclays

Hi, good morning. It looks like you're forecasting operating cash flow to improve the $150,000,000 to $200,000,000 in 2025 on a lower EBITDA base. So hoping you could flesh out the drivers of that better conversion. And then as a follow-up, to the extent that there's an incremental $100,000,000 plus from the state directed payment programs, would that all drop through to operating cash flow? Thanks.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Sure, Andrew. Thanks for the question. So there are a couple moving parts on the cash flows. So the New Mexico DPP program that we did recognize in 2024, that

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

was in the fourth quarter,

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

that $40,000,000 roughly would be paid in cash received in 2025. So that's a nice carryover and would contribute to the cash. Also as we wrapped up our implementation of our ERP conversion, that has been a drag on cash flows for us. Although we've been backing out the income statement impact or at least a portion of the income statement impact of that program from adjusted EBITDA. We've not backed out the cash component of that from cash flows.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

So I think that also contributes to some improved cash flow generation in 2025. Another positive impact is we've gotten word that our tax refund is being processed by their IRS. This is the tax refund that we've been waiting on for a number of years. So we would expect roughly $70,000,000 to $75,000,000 of cash coming in on that. Those will be offset.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

We will have higher cash interest payments in 2025, primarily related to the timing of cash interest payments, particularly around the refinancing, which we did refinance some debt this past year at a higher interest rate, but just the timing of payments will cause cash interest to increase about $40,000,000 in 2025. So that will be offsetting.

Andrew Mok
Andrew Mok
Director at Barclays

Got it. That's helpful. And then just to clarify a point on the state directed payments. I think you called out $100,000,000 to $125,000,000 in incremental annual benefit from Tennessee and New Mexico. That doesn't include the retro Tennessee piece.

Andrew Mok
Andrew Mok
Director at Barclays

Is that correct?

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

That is correct. That does not include the retro Tennessee piece. So that would be an addition. And those programs will accrue to our cash flow, will flow through EBITDA and cash flow as well in 2020.

Andrew Mok
Andrew Mok
Director at Barclays

Great.

Andrew Mok
Andrew Mok
Director at Barclays

Thanks for all the color.

Operator

The next question will come from Stephen Baxter with Wells Fargo. Please go ahead.

Analyst

Hey, this is Mitchell on for Steve. I wanted to see if you could quantify the continued hurricane impact in Q4 and do you expect

Analyst

Thanks.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Sure. How are you today? We had as we indicated in our guide for Q4, we expected about a $10,000,000 impact from the hurricane. It was as expected and really didn't see any additional impact. We have one hospital that continues to be shut down as a result of that hurricane.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

It was shut down for the entire quarter into Q1. The assets that were impacted by the hurricane, ShorePoint Health System, are assets that we are being sold. Those were that deal was announced and we expect that deal to close here in the first quarter. So we do not expect any ongoing impact since those assets will be gone. Great.

Kevin Hammons
Kevin Hammons
President & CFO at Community Health Systems

Thank you.

Operator

Our next question will come from Josh Raskin with Nephron Research. Please go ahead.

Joshua Raskin
Partner - Managed Care & Providers at Nephron Research LLC

Hi. Thanks. Good morning.

Joshua Raskin
Partner - Managed Care & Providers at Nephron Research LLC

Morning.

Operator

It seems that our questioner has disconnected. This leaves no questions in the question queue. I would like to turn the conference back over to Mr. Tim Hinchen for any closing remarks.

Tim Hingtgen
Tim Hingtgen
CEO at Community Health Systems

Great. Thank you, Chuck, and thanks to all of you for joining our call today. As always, if you have additional questions, you can reach us at (615) 465-7000. Thanks again, and have a great day.

Operator

The conference is now concluded. Thank you for attending today's presentation. You may now

Executives
    • Anton Hie
      Anton Hie
      VP Investor Relations
    • Tim Hingtgen
      Tim Hingtgen
      CEO
    • Kevin Hammons
      Kevin Hammons
      President & CFO
Analysts
Powered by Quartr
Earnings Conference Call
Community Health Systems Q4 2024
00:00 / 00:00

Transcript Sections