“We add bed supply, we add outpatient facilities,” Mr. Hazen said on the health system’s Jan. 24 earnings call. “Those are central elements to our network development strategies and have proven to be very successful and have proven to be very productive from a capital return standpoint.”
He said they’ve added to their existing networks where possible.
“We’ve bought outpatient businesses,” Mr. Hazen said. “We’ve complemented our hospital networks with rural facilities and surgical facilities and so forth. And that will continue, I think, into 2025.”
HCA is expecting to close the acquisition of Manchester, N.H.-based Catholic Medical Center in the first quarter of 2025. Catholic Medical Center comprises a 330-bed regional health hospital with more than 400 providers and more than 3,000 employees. CMC staff will join more than 2,500 HCA employees serving patients at Rochester, N.H.-based Frisbie Memorial Hospital, Derry, N.H.-based Parkland Medical Center and Portsmouth (N.H.) Regional Hospital.
Mr. Hazen said that acquisition will “round out our New Hampshire network and give us a fairly broader and more productive Southern New Hampshire network.”
“We’re excited about that, but most of our investments are going to go toward organic system development,” he said. “We’ll have to wait and see if the market starts to shift and more inorganic growth opportunities develop, but at this point, we are not anticipating anything material.”
The system is expecting capital expenditures between $5 billion and $5.2 billion in 2025, excluding acquisitions. HCA’s capital expenditures totaled $4.9 billion in 2024.
