(Reuters) -Tenet Healthcare Corp forecast 2023 profit below Wall Street estimates on Thursday, bracing for a slow recovery in non-urgent procedures and persistent staffing shortages that could drive up labor costs.
Shares of the company were down 2.5% before the bell.
The company expects to earn adjusted profit in the range of $4.68 to $5.85 per share in 2023, with the midpoint coming in below analysts’ estimates of $5.66, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
A nationwide shortage of healthcare staff following the COVID-19 pandemic has kept hospital operators such as Tenet and HCA Healthcare from restarting higher-margin elective procedures at full pace.
That has dulled the boost from rising hospitalizations related to lower-margin flu cases, according to analysts.
The early onset of the flu season and growth in Tenet’s outpatient surgery business helped the Dallas-based hospital operator report better-than-expected profit for the fourth quarter.
Excluding items, the company reported a net income of $1.96 per share for the quarter ended Dec. 31, beating analysts’ estimates of $1.23 per share, according to Refinitiv IBES data.
Tenet said admissions rose 2.9% on a same-hospital basis in the quarter, compared with last year.
(Reporting by Aditya Samal and Bhanvi Satija in Bengaluru; Editing by Devika Syamnath)
