Robert Ortenzio
Analyst · RBC Capital Markets. Your line is now open
Good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us for Select Medical’s First Quarter Earnings Conference Call for 2018. Before I outline our operational metrics, I want to provide you with some summary comments and updates since we presented to you last quarter. Our Inpatient Rehab and Concentra business segments both had a great quarter with strong double-digit revenue and adjusted EBITDA growth on a same-quarter year-over-year basis. Our Inpatient Rehab segment experienced significant growth in terms of both revenue and adjusted EBITDA as our joint venture development projects opened in late 2016 and throughout 2017 continued to mature. On a same-quarter year-over-year basis, revenue grew 20.7% and adjusted EBITDA increased 64%, which was driven by growth in both volume and rate in this segment. We continue to build our JV pipeline with expected two to three new projects per year. We opened our new Ochsner rehabilitation joint venture early this week, and believe our Dignity, Las Vegas joint venture will open in the fourth quarter of this year. We expect double-digit growth in both revenue and EBITDA for the foreseeable future in this business segment. Our Concentra segment had same-quarter year-over-year revenue growth of 42.1% and adjusted EBITDA growth of 35.7%, driven primarily by the acquisition of U.S. HealthWorks on February 1, which added 219 centers and 21 on-site clinics. Beginning February 1, U.S. HealthWorks’ results are included in our Concentra segment and consolidated in Select’s financials. U.S. HealthWorks added $90 million of net revenue, [approximating] $9 million of EBITDA. Concentra on a standalone basis without U.S. HealthWorks realized a 6% growth in revenue, 14% growth in adjusted EBITDA and adjusted EBITDA margin of 18.3%. Our LTAC segment also had a good quarter on a year-over-year same quarter basis with revenue growth of 4.4%, occupancy rate growing from 68% to 71%, admission growth of 5.6%, and compliant population at 99.8%. We realized substantial growth in patient volume in mid-January through the balance of the quarter, which required increasing our clinical staffing with traveling nurses, agency nursing and overtime. This increase in [costly] staffing had a negative impact on our EBITDA margins in January, but as we fine-tuned our clinical staff throughout the balance of the quarter, we saw margins grow nicely from 12% in January to almost 19% in March. We believe this bodes well for our LTAC business as we normalize occupancy rates back to historical levels. Finally, our Outpatient Rehab segment experienced some modest revenue growth driven by improved pricing in the quarter, which faced a challenging quarter weather-wise in several outpatient markets, but we were able to overcome much of that challenge with strong performance in our legacy clinics. We estimate the weather impact to us was approximately $1.8 million for the quarter. We continue to make progress in our Physio clinics and are seeing nice traction in a number of their markets, but we still believe it will take another 6 to 9 months to reach our expected financial objectives. Let me take you through some additional operational highlights for the first quarter. Overall our net revenue for the first quarter increased by $161 million to $1.25 billion for a 14.8% year-over-year growth rate with top line growth in each of our four business segments. Net revenue in our LTAC segment in the first quarter increased to $465 million compared to $445 million in the same quarter last year. Patient days increased 4.2% to 266,000 days compared to 255,000 days in the same quarter last year. Net revenue per patient day remained stable at $1,730 per day in the first quarter compared to $1,731 in the same quarter last year. As I mentioned, net revenue in our Inpatient Rehab segment in the first quarter increased 20.7% to $175 million compared to $145 million in the same quarter last year. Patient days increased 23.5% to 77,000 patient days compared to 62,000 days in the same quarter last year. Net revenue per patient day increased 7% to $1,623 in the first quarter compared to $1,517 per day in the same quarter last year. Net revenue in our Outpatient Rehab segment in the first quarter increased 2.8% to $257.4 million compared to $250.4 million in the same quarter last year. Our net revenue per visit was $103 in the first quarter compared to $99 per visit in the same quarter last year. Patient visits decreased slightly to 2.07 million visits in the first quarter compared to 2.08 million visits in the same quarter last year. Decline in visits is primarily related to severe weather condition that impacted our clinics within certain regions of the country during the quarter. Net revenue in our Concentra segment for the first quarter increased 42.1% to $356 million compared to $251 million in the same quarter last year. For the first quarter, revenue from our centers was $322 million and the balance of approximately $34 million was generated from on-site clinics, community-based outpatient clinics and other services. For the centers, patient visits were 2.6 million and net revenue per visit was $124 in the first quarter compared to almost 1.9 million visits and $116 per visit in the same quarter last year. Increases in net revenue in visits were primarily related to the acquisition of U.S. HealthWorks. Increases in rate related to both higher reimbursement rates at the U.S. HealthWorks centers and improved workers compensation rates at the existing Concentra centers. Total adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter grew 17.5% to $163.2 million compared to $138.9 million in the same quarter last year with consolidated adjusted EBITDA margin at 13% for the first quarter compared to 12.7% for the same quarter last year. Our LTAC segment adjusted EBITDA increased slightly to $73 million in the first quarter compared to $72.3 million in the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the LTAC segment was 15.7% in the first quarter compared to 16.3% in the same quarter last year. During the first quarter last year, we had adjusted EBITDA gains in some of our since closed hospitals. Excluding those gains, adjusted EBITDA margins would have been 15.4% in the first quarter last year. Inpatient Rehab adjusted EBITDA increased 64% in the first quarter to $26.8 million compared to $16.3 million in the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the Inpatient Rehab segment was 15.3% in the first quarter compared to 11.3% in the same quarter last year. The increase in adjusted EBITDA and margins were primarily the result of improved performance in the new hospitals we opened in 2016 and 2017. Adjusted EBITDA results for the Inpatient Rehab segment include start-up losses of approximately $800,000 for the first quarter compared to approximately $2 million in start-up losses in the same quarter last year. Outpatient Rehab adjusted EBITDA for the first quarter was 30.5 million compared to 31.4 million in the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin for the Outpatient segment was 11.9% in the first quarter compared to 12.5% in the same quarter last year. As I mentioned, several of our clinic markets were impacted by severe weather in the quarter, which is the primary reason for the decline in adjusted EBITDA and margin as compared to last year. Concentra adjusted EBITDA was 57.8 million for the first quarter compared to 42.6 million in the same quarter last year. Adjusted EBITDA margin was 16.2% in the first quarter compared to 17% in the same quarter last year. The decline in adjusted EBITDA margin is primarily attributable to the acquisition of U.S. HealthWorks as their centers operate at lower margins than our existing Concentra centers, as well as incurred cost associated with integration activities. Earnings per fully diluted share was $0.25 in the first quarter compared to $0.12 in the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings per fully diluted share was $0.29 per diluted share for the first quarter compared to $0.21 per diluted share for the same quarter last year. Adjusted earnings per fully diluted share excludes the loss on early retirement of debt in both the first quarters of this year and last year, and the related tax effects. Adjusted earnings per share also excludes costs associated with the acquisition of U.S. HealthWorks and its related tax effect in the first quarter of this year. Before I conclude, I wanted to provide a couple of quick comments on the regulatory and development front. On April 24, the proposed LTAC rules were posed and on April 27 the proposed rehab rules were posted by CMS. While we typically don't comment publicly on proposed rules, we were pleased to see the proposed elimination of the 25% rule for the LTACs. The 25% rule has been an overhang to the industry since 2004. Its elimination should help provide stability to the industry that we expected with the implementation of patient criteria. On the development front, yesterday we announced the expansion of services in our Banner joint venture with the planned purchase of a rehab hospital in the Austin, Texas area, which is expected to close in July. I’ll now turn it over to Marty Jackson for some additional financial details before opening the call up for questions.