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Valued at a market cap of $78.8 billion, HCA Healthcare, Inc. (HCA) is the largest non-governmental operator of acute care hospitals in the U.S., providing a wide range of medical and surgical services. It operates behavioral hospitals that offer therapeutic programs for psychiatric and substance abuse treatment. The Nashville, Tennessee-based company is expected to unveil its fiscal Q4 earnings results before the market opens on Friday, Jan. 24.
Ahead of the event, analysts forecast the hospital operator to post a profit of $6.03 per share, reflecting a growth of 2.2% from $5.90 per share in the same quarter last year. The company has consistently surpassed Wall Street's bottom-line projections in the past four quarters. HCA surpassed the consensus EPS estimate by a margin of 1.6% in the last reported quarter.
