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Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies | 3 Months Ended
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Mar. 31, 2018
Accounting Policies [Abstract] |
Basis of Presentation and Significant Accounting Policies | NOTE 1 — BASIS OF PRESENTATION AND SIGNIFICANT ACCOUNTING POLICIES Reporting Entity HCA Healthcare, Inc. is a holding company whose affiliates own and operate hospitals and related health care entities. The term “affiliates” includes direct and indirect subsidiaries of HCA Healthcare, Inc. and partnerships and joint ventures in which such subsidiaries are partners. At March 31, 2018, these affiliates owned and operated 178 hospitals, 120 freestanding surgery centers and provided extensive outpatient and ancillary services. HCA Healthcare, Inc.’s facilities are located in 20 states and England. The terms “Company,” “HCA,” “we,” “our” or “us,” as used herein and unless otherwise stated or indicated by context, refer to HCA Healthcare, Inc. and its affiliates. The terms “facilities” or “hospitals” refer to entities owned and operated by affiliates of HCA and the term “employees” refers to employees of affiliates of HCA. Basis of Presentation The accompanying unaudited condensed consolidated financial statements have been prepared in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles for interim financial information and with the instructions to Form 10-Q and Article 10 of Regulation S-X. Accordingly, they do not include all the information and footnotes required by generally accepted accounting principles for complete consolidated financial statements. In the opinion of management, all adjustments considered necessary for a fair presentation have been included and are of a normal and recurring nature. The majority of our expenses are “costs of revenues” items. Costs that could be classified as general and administrative would include our corporate office costs, which were $81 million and $82 million for the quarters ended March 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively. Operating results for the quarter ended March 31, 2018 are not necessarily indicative of the results that may be expected for the year ending December 31, 2018. For further information, refer to the consolidated financial statements and footnotes thereto included in our annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended December 31, 2017. Revenues In May 2014, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (“FASB”) issued a new standard related to revenue recognition. We adopted the new standard effective January 1, 2018, using the full retrospective method. The adoption of the new standard did not have an impact on our recognition of net revenues for any periods prior to adoption. The most significant impact of adopting the new standard is to the presentation of our consolidated income statements, where we no longer present the “Provision for doubtful accounts” as a separate line item and our “Revenues” are presented net of estimated implicit price concession revenue deductions. We also have eliminated the related presentation of “allowances for doubtful accounts” on our consolidated balance sheets as a result of the adoption of the new standard. Our revenues generally relate to contracts with patients in which our performance obligations are to provide health care services to the patients. Revenues are recorded during the period our obligations to provide health care services are satisfied. Our performance obligations for inpatient services are generally satisfied over periods that average approximately five days, and revenues are recognized based on charges incurred in relation to total expected charges. Our performance obligations for outpatient services are generally satisfied over a period of less than one day. The contractual relationships with patients, in most cases, also involve a third-party payer (Medicare, Medicaid, managed care health plans and commercial insurance companies, including plans offered through the health insurance exchanges) and the transaction prices for the services provided are dependent upon the terms provided by (Medicare and Medicaid) or negotiated with (managed care health plans and commercial insurance companies) the third-party payers. The payment arrangements with third-party payers for the services we provide to the related patients typically specify payments at amounts less than our standard charges. Medicare generally pays for inpatient and outpatient services at prospectively determined rates based on clinical, diagnostic and other factors. Services provided to patients having Medicaid coverage are generally paid at prospectively determined rates per discharge, per identified service or per covered member. Agreements with commercial insurance carriers, managed care and preferred provider organizations generally provide for payments based upon predetermined rates per diagnosis, per diem rates or discounted fee-for-service rates. Management continually reviews the contractual estimation process to consider and incorporate updates to laws and regulations and the frequent changes in managed care contractual terms resulting from contract renegotiations and renewals. Our revenues are based upon the estimated amounts we expect to be entitled to receive from patients and third-party payers. Estimates of contractual allowances under managed care and commercial insurance plans are based upon the payment terms specified in the related contractual agreements. Revenues related to uninsured patients and uninsured copayment and deductible amounts for patients who have health care coverage may have discounts applied (uninsured discounts and contractual discounts). We also record estimated implicit price concessions (based primarily on historical collection experience) related to uninsured accounts to record self-pay revenues at the estimated amounts we expect to collect. Our revenues from third-party payers and others (including uninsured patients) for the quarters ended March 31, 2018 and 2017 are summarized in the following table (dollars in millions):
|  | 2018 |  |  | Ratio |  |  | 2017 |  |  | Ratio |
Medicare |  | $ | 2,524 |  |  |  | 22.1 | % |  | $ | 2,361 |  |  |  | 22.2 | %
Managed Medicare |  |  | 1,399 |  |  |  | 12.3 |  |  |  | 1,183 |  |  |  | 11.1 |
Medicaid |  |  | 281 |  |  |  | 2.5 |  |  |  | 294 |  |  |  | 2.8 |
Managed Medicaid |  |  | 561 |  |  |  | 4.9 |  |  |  | 589 |  |  |  | 5.5 |
Managed care and insurers |  |  | 6,062 |  |  |  | 53.1 |  |  |  | 5,623 |  |  |  | 52.9 |
International (managed care and insurers) |  |  | 305 |  |  |  | 2.7 |  |  |  | 269 |  |  |  | 2.5 |
Other |  |  | 291 |  |  |  | 2.4 |  |  |  | 304 |  |  |  | 3.0 |
Revenues |  | $ | 11,423 |  |  |  | 100.0 | % |  | $ | 10,623 |  |  |  | 100.0 | %
Laws and regulations governing the Medicare and Medicaid programs are complex and subject to interpretation. As a result, there is at least a reasonable possibility recorded estimates will change by a material amount. Estimated reimbursement amounts are adjusted in subsequent periods as cost reports are prepared and filed and as final settlements are determined (in relation to certain government programs, primarily Medicare, this is generally referred to as the “cost report” filing and settlement process). The Emergency Medical Treatment and Labor Act (“EMTALA”) requires any hospital participating in the Medicare program to conduct an appropriate medical screening examination of every person who presents to the hospital’s emergency room for treatment and, if the individual is suffering from an emergency medical condition, to either stabilize the condition or make an appropriate transfer of the individual to a facility able to handle the condition. The obligation to screen and stabilize emergency medical conditions exists regardless of an individual’s ability to pay for treatment. Federal and state laws and regulations require, and our commitment to providing quality patient care encourages, us to provide services to patients who are financially unable to pay for the health care services they receive. Prior to November 2017, patients treated at hospitals for non-elective care, who have income at or below 200% of the federal poverty level, were eligible for charity care. During November 2017, we expanded our charity policy to include patients who have income above 200%, but at or below 400%, of the federal poverty level and we will limit the patient responsibility amounts for these patients to a percentage of their annual household income, computed on a sliding scale based upon their annual income and the applicable percentage of the federal poverty level. The federal poverty level is established by the federal government and is based on income and family size. Because we do not pursue collection of amounts determined to qualify as charity care, they are not reported in revenues. We provide discounts to uninsured patients who do not qualify for Medicaid or charity care. In implementing the uninsured discount policy, we may first attempt to provide assistance to uninsured patients to help determine whether they may qualify for Medicaid, other federal or state assistance, or charity care. If an uninsured patient does not qualify for these programs, the uninsured discount is applied. The collection of outstanding receivables for Medicare, Medicaid, managed care payers, other third-party payers and patients is our primary source of cash and is critical to our operating performance. The primary collection risks relate to uninsured patient accounts, including patient accounts for which the primary insurance carrier has paid the amounts covered by the applicable agreement, but patient responsibility amounts (deductibles and copayments) remain outstanding. Implicit price concessions relate primarily to amounts due directly from patients. Estimated implicit price concessions are recorded for all uninsured accounts, regardless of the aging of those accounts. Accounts are written off when all reasonable internal and external collection efforts have been performed. The estimates for implicit price concessions are based upon management’s assessment of historical writeoffs and expected net collections, business and economic conditions, trends in federal, state and private employer health care coverage and other collection indicators. Management relies on the results of detailed reviews of historical writeoffs and collections at facilities that represent a majority of our revenues and accounts receivable (the “hindsight analysis”) as a primary source of information in estimating the collectability of our accounts receivable. We perform the hindsight analysis quarterly, utilizing rolling twelve-months accounts receivable collection and writeoff data. We believe our quarterly updates to the estimated implicit price concession amounts at each of our hospital facilities provide reasonable estimates of our revenues and valuations of our accounts receivable. These routine, quarterly changes in estimates have not resulted in material adjustments to the valuations of our accounts receivable or period-to-period comparisons of our results of operations. At March 31, 2018 and 2017, estimated implicit price concessions of $5.312 billion and $4.880 billion had been recorded as reductions to our revenues and accounts receivable balances to enable us to record our revenues and accounts receivable at the estimated amounts we expect to collect. To quantify the total impact of the trends related to uninsured accounts, we believe it is beneficial to view total uncompensated care, which is comprised of charity care, uninsured discounts and implicit price concessions. A summary of the estimated cost of total uncompensated care for the quarters ended March 31, 2018 and 2017 follows (dollars in millions):
|  | 2018 |  |  | 2017 |
Patient care costs (salaries and benefits, supplies, other operating expenses and depreciation and amortization) |  | $ | 9,867 |  |  | $ | 9,149 |
Cost-to-charges ratio (patient care costs as percentage of gross patient charges) |  |  | 12.4 | % |  |  | 12.8 | %
Total uncompensated care |  | $ | 6,252 |  |  | $ | 5,327 |
Multiply by the cost-to-charges ratio |  |  | 12.4 | % |  |  | 12.8 | %
Estimated cost of total uncompensated care |  | $ | 775 |  |  | $ | 682 |
Total uncompensated care as a percentage of the sum of revenues and total uncompensated care was 35.4% and 33.4% for the quarters ended March 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively. The total uncompensated care amounts include charity care of $1.879 billion and $1.086 billion, and the related estimated costs of charity care were $233 million and $139 million for the quarters ended March 31, 2018 and 2017, respectively. Recent Pronouncements In February 2016, the FASB issued Accounting Standards Update 2016-02, Leases (“ASU 2016-02”), which requires lessees to recognize assets and liabilities for most leases. ASU 2016-02 is effective for public business entities for annual and interim periods beginning after December 15, 2018. Early adoption is permitted. We are continuing to evaluate the provisions of ASU 2016-02 (and related developments) to determine how our financial statements will be affected, and we believe the primary effect of adopting the new standard will be to record right-of-use assets and obligations for our leases currently classified as operating leases. Reclassifications Certain prior year amounts have been reclassified to conform to the current year presentation.

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- Definition The entire disclosure for the basis of presentation and significant accounting policies concepts. Basis of presentation describes the underlying basis used to prepare the financial statements (for example, US Generally Accepted Accounting Principles, Other Comprehensive Basis of Accounting, IFRS). Accounting policies describe all significant accounting policies of the reporting entity. + References Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef -Publisher FASB -Name Accounting Standards Codification -Topic 235 -URI http://asc.fasb.org/topic&trid=2122369 + Details
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