HCA vs. ACHC, ENSG, CNC, EHC, ELV, SEM, UHS, ALC, THC, and BKD
Should you be buying HCA Healthcare stock or one of its competitors? The main competitors of HCA Healthcare include Acadia Healthcare (ACHC), The Ensign Group (ENSG), Centene (CNC), Encompass Health (EHC), Elevance Health (ELV), Select Medical (SEM), Universal Health Services (UHS), Alcon (ALC), Tenet Healthcare (THC), and Brookdale Senior Living (BKD). These companies are all part of the "medical" sector.
HCA Healthcare vs. Its Competitors
HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) and Acadia Healthcare (NASDAQ:ACHC) are both medical companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their profitability, risk, media sentiment, dividends, institutional ownership, analyst recommendations, earnings and valuation.
HCA Healthcare has a net margin of 8.21% compared to Acadia Healthcare's net margin of 4.31%. Acadia Healthcare's return on equity of 8.34% beat HCA Healthcare's return on equity.
HCA Healthcare presently has a consensus price target of $401.83, indicating a potential downside of 1.24%. Acadia Healthcare has a consensus price target of $40.77, indicating a potential upside of 73.49%. Given Acadia Healthcare's stronger consensus rating and higher possible upside, analysts clearly believe Acadia Healthcare is more favorable than HCA Healthcare.
HCA Healthcare has higher revenue and earnings than Acadia Healthcare. Acadia Healthcare is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than HCA Healthcare, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.
62.7% of HCA Healthcare shares are held by institutional investors. 1.3% of HCA Healthcare shares are held by insiders. Comparatively, 2.0% of Acadia Healthcare shares are held by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, large money managers and hedge funds believe a company will outperform the market over the long term.
HCA Healthcare has a beta of 1.41, indicating that its stock price is 41% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Acadia Healthcare has a beta of 0.89, indicating that its stock price is 11% less volatile than the S&P 500.
In the previous week, HCA Healthcare had 28 more articles in the media than Acadia Healthcare. MarketBeat recorded 36 mentions for HCA Healthcare and 8 mentions for Acadia Healthcare. Acadia Healthcare's average media sentiment score of 1.62 beat HCA Healthcare's score of 1.27 indicating that Acadia Healthcare is being referred to more favorably in the news media.
Summary
HCA Healthcare beats Acadia Healthcare on 11 of the 17 factors compared between the two stocks.
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New MarketBeat Followers Over Time
This chart shows the number of new MarketBeat users adding HCA and its top 5 competitors to their watchlist. Each company is represented with a line over a 90 day period.
Media Sentiment Over Time
This chart shows the average media sentiment of NYSE and its competitors over the past 90 days as caculated by MarketBeat. The averaged score is equivalent to the following: Very Negative Sentiment <= -1.5, Negative Sentiment > -1.5 and <= -0.5, Neutral Sentiment > -0.5 and < 0.5, Positive Sentiment >= 0.5 and < 1.5, and Very Positive Sentiment >= 1.5.
HCA Healthcare Competitors List
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This page (NYSE:HCA) was last updated on 9/3/2025 by MarketBeat.com Staff
