Hospital operator Tenet Healthcare Corp. said Tuesday its fourth-quarter loss widened on impairment and restructuring charges.
The company reported a net loss of $386 million, or 82 cents per share, from $286 million, or 61 cents per share, a year ago. Tenet reported a loss from continuing operations of $393 million, or 83 cents per share, for the latest quarter. Results include impairment and restructuring charges of 52 cents per share.
Revenue rose nearly 3 percent to $2.18 billion from $2.12 billion last year.
Analysts surveyed by Thomson Financial expected a loss per share of 4 cents on revenue of $2.13 billion, but that forecast does not account for charges Tenet incurred in the most-recent quarter, a Thomson Financial spokesman said.
Tenet shares slipped 39 cents, or 5.2 percent, to $7.11 in morning trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
Patient admissions for the fourth quarter fell nearly 1 percent to 143,110 patients from the year-ago period.
For the full year, the company posted a loss of $803 million, or $1.71 per share, from $724 million, or $1.54 per share, last year. Revenue rose to $8.7 billion from $8.61 billion.
Tenet, which operates 63 hospitals in 12 states, has been selling facilities as part of a restructuring. Six hospitals _ three in Philadelphia, two in Los Angeles and one in New Orleans _ remain for sale, though one in Philadelphia is under contract and expected to change hands in March, a company spokesman said.
Tenet agreed in June to a $900 million settlement to end investigations by the Justice Department and several U.S. attorneys into allegations it overbilled Medicare for the most costly cases and made illegal kickbacks to doctors to refer Medicare patients to its hospitals. The settlement did not include a determination that Tenet broke the law.