Here are six things to know.
1. Investing organizations include Dallas-based Tenet Healthcare, Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare and San Francisco-based Dignity Health. These hospital operators are actively investing in surgery centers, freestanding emergency rooms and urgent care clinics, the report states.
2. Tenet in May announced it would hurry its buyout of United Surgical Partners International, increasing its ownership interest in the ambulatory surgery center chain to 80 percent by July 3. Tenet also plans to invest another $100 million to $150 million each year on other freestanding surgery centers, freestanding emergency rooms and satellite locations, reports WSJ.
3. Dignity Health now operates more than 280 freestanding emergency rooms, microhospitals and urgent care and workplace clinics through various joint ventures and its 2012 acquisition of U.S. HealthWorks, a Valencia, Calif.-based operator of occupational medicine and urgent care centers, according to the report.
4. HCA told WSJ it plans to make significant investments in outpatient care, including increasing the number of freestanding urgent care centers it operates by 40 percent compared to two years ago.
5. Hospital operators are investing in outpatient care as inpatient admissions decline. WSJ reports admissions growth at HCA hospitals reached 1 percent to 2 percent in recent quarters. Tenet, which revealed earlier this year it is exploring strategic options, has recorded flat or decreased admissions most quarters since late 2015, the report states.
6. Tenet and HCA lowered their earnings estimates for 2017, partly due to the decreased admissions, although it is not yet clear how long-term earnings will be affected by outpatient care investments, according to the report.
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