Business
Tenet's losses fall
NEWS IN BRIEF — Posted March 20, 2006
Hospital operator Tenet Healthcare Corp. isn't losing as much money as it used to, but it's still suffering from bad debt and declining patient volumes, according to its latest earnings report.
The Dallas-based company posted a loss of $286 million, or 61 cents per share, for the fourth quarter of 2005 compared with a net loss of $2.19 billion, or $4.68 per share, for the same period a year earlier. Large restructuring charges contributed to the 2004 total.
Net operating revenue for the quarter was $2.3 billion, down from $2.4 billion in the fourth quarter of 2004.
Trevor Fetter, Tenet's president and chief executive, said in a written statement that the company had made strides in its pricing and cost-control endeavors but suffered from the continuing decline of patient volumes and "stubbornly high" levels of bad debt expense.
Note: This item originally appeared at http://www.ama-assn.org/amednews/2006/03/20/bibf0320.htm.
