The nation’s second-largest nursing home company continued to steam along during the second quarter, achieving record operating results and noting it had regained more than half of census losses caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, Ensign Group leaders said in a release late Wednesday.
Highlights from the company’s second-quarter earnings included skilled services income rising 15% during the three-month period ending June 30.
Skilled revenue improved by 4.2% and 7.4% for same store and transitioning facilities, respectively, over the second quarter of 2020. Skilled mix days, meanwhile, rose 1.4% and 2.9%, respectively, remaining higher than pre-pandemic levels.
Meanwhile, occupancy also nudged upward from the first quarter of the year, by 1.7% and 1.5% for same store and transitioning buildings, respectively. Some of the company’s more mature holdings, particularly many in Arizona and Colorado, are already back to pre-pandemic census levels.
Company leaders were to expand upon results on an earnings conference call starting at 1 p.m. ET Thursday.
“We are very happy to report another record quarter. As the healthcare system continued its march toward normalcy, we continued to see patient flows trending towards traditional patterns and the momentum we saw in occupancies during the first quarter continued into the second,” said Barry Port, Ensign’s CEO, in a prepared statement Wednesday.
“In fact, from the low point of our pandemic period census, which we hit in December of 2020, our same store and transitioning operations have already improved census by 51.6%,” he added.
Second-quarter overall diluted earnings per share were $0.87 — more than 19% above the same quarter a year earlier. Overall revenues for the quarter were $638.5 million, a 9.2% improvement over the same quarter the previous year.
Ensign comprises more than 24,000 skilled nursing beds and 240 healthcare operations, 22 of which also include senior living operations, in 13 states. The company owns 95 real estate assets, 65 of which it operates.
