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IPC The Hospitalist Company Announces Estimated 2011 Results

IPC The Hospitalist Company, Inc., the leading North Hollywood-based national hospitalist group, today announced that unaudited year-end net revenues and earnings per share will come in slightly below pervious guidance due in part to “softness in patient volumes” and higher than expected start-up costs. The company said year-end net revenues will be in the range of $455 million to $458 for the 12 months ending Dec. 31, below previous guidance of $463 million to $465 million. The company reported the estimated results ahead of its announcement of actual 2011 operating results. The company also reported that fourth quarter net revenues will be in the range of $115 million to $118 million. Those numbers are based on patient encounters of 1,224,000 for the fourth quarter of 2011, an increase of 22 percent compared to patient encounters of 1,006,000 for the fourth quarter 2010. The hospitalist headcount as of Dec. 31, 2011 was approximately 1,200, an increase of 168, or 16 percent above the provider headcount of 1,032 as of Dec. 31, 2010, the company reported. Hospitalists are physicians who follow patients who have been admitted to a hospital. IPC now also estimates fourth quarter earnings per diluted share in the range of $0.47 to $0.51 and $1.70 to $1.74 for the full year 2011. Those figures are also below previous guidance of $1.78 to $ 1.86. Explaining the lower than expected results, Dr. Adam Singer, CEO of IPC, said the company’s previous revenue guidance assumed an increase in encounters in the fourth quarter as compared to the third quarter. He said IPC based its expectations on its history of increased productivity per provider in prior fourth quarters. “While we added the number of providers we expected in the quarter and grew encounters and revenue, we experienced unexpected softness in patient volumes in certain practices around the country, which resulted in lower than estimated revenue.” In addition, he said, the continued use of temporary staffing at several of the larger practices and start-up costs to open several new practices negatively impacted profitability. “We expect that our larger provider work force and new practices will position us well in 2012….Our acquisition pipeline remains strong and we continue to look for opportunities across the hospitalist sector.”

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