Company: THC
Filing Date: 2025-02-18
Form Type: 10-K
Source: 0000070318-25-000009
Chunk: 191

Company: TENET HEALTHCARE CORP
Filing Date: 2025-02-18
Form: 10-K
Item: Item 1A
Chunk 191
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ederal and state funding restrictions.

Any of these factors could materially increase or decrease payments from these government programs in the future, as well as affect the cost of providing services to our patients and the timing of payments to our facilities, which could in turn adversely affect our overall business, financial condition, results of operations or cash flows.

Several states in which we operate continue to face budgetary challenges that have resulted in reduced Medicaid funding levels to hospitals and other providers. Because most states must operate with balanced budgets, and the Medicaid program is generally a significant portion of a state’s budget, states can be expected to adopt or consider adopting future legislation designed to reduce or not increase their Medicaid expenditures. In addition, some states delay issuing Medicaid payments to providers to manage state expenditures. As an alternative means of funding provider payments, many of the states where we operate have adopted supplemental payment programs authorized under the Social Security Act. Continuing pressure on state budgets and other factors, including legislative and regulatory changes, could result in future reductions to Medicaid payments, payment delays or changes to Medicaid supplemental payment programs that could negatively impact our financial condition, results of operations or cash flows. Federal government denials or delayed approvals of waiver applications or extension requests by the states where we operate could also materially impact our Medicaid funding levels.

Because we cannot predict what actions the federal government or the states may take under existing or future legislation and/or regulatory changes to address budget gaps, deficits, Medicaid expansion, Medicaid eligibility redeterminations, provider fee programs, state‑directed payment programs or Medicaid Section 1115 waivers, we are unable to assess the effect that any such legislation or regulatory action might have on our business; however, the overall adverse impact on our future financial position, results of operations or cash flows could be material.

It is essential to our ongoing business that we attract an appropriate number of quality physicians in the specialties required to support our services and that we maintain good relations with those physicians.

The success of our business and clinical program development depends in large part on the number, quality, specialties, and admitting and scheduling practices of the licensed physicians who are members of the medical staffs of our hospitals and other facilities, as well as physicians who affiliate with us and use our facilities as an extension of their practices. Physicians are often not employees of the hospitals or surgery centers at which they practice. Members of the medical staffs of our facilities also often serve on the medical staffs of facilities we do not operate, and they are free to terminate their association with our facilities or admit their patients to competing facilities at