Critical Comparison: HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) & Option Care Health (NASDAQ:OPCH)

HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) and Option Care Health (NASDAQ:OPCH) are both healthcare companies, but which is the superior business? We will contrast the two companies based on the strength of their risk, valuation, institutional ownership, earnings, dividends, profitability and analyst recommendations.

Volatility and Risk

HCA Healthcare has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its stock price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, Option Care Health has a beta of 0.61, meaning that its stock price is 39% less volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares HCA Healthcare and Option Care Health’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
HCA Healthcare	8.77%	-244.79%	11.10%
Option Care Health	3.68%	18.74%	7.25%

Analyst Recommendations

This is a breakdown of recent ratings for HCA Healthcare and Option Care Health, as provided by MarketBeat.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
HCA Healthcare	1	8	14	0	2.57
Option Care Health	0	7	7	0	2.50

HCA Healthcare presently has a consensus target price of $462.64, indicating a potential upside of 7.01%. Option Care Health has a consensus target price of $29.92, indicating a potential upside of 23.14%. Given Option Care Health’s higher possible upside, analysts plainly believe Option Care Health is more favorable than HCA Healthcare.

Insider & Institutional Ownership

62.7% of HCA Healthcare shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 98.0% of Option Care Health shares are held by institutional investors. 1.5% of HCA Healthcare shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.7% of Option Care Health shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that endowments, hedge funds and large money managers believe a stock will outperform the market over the long term.

Earnings & Valuation

This table compares HCA Healthcare and Option Care Health”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
HCA Healthcare	$75.60 billion	1.24	$6.78 billion	$29.87	14.47
Option Care Health	$5.65 billion	0.64	$207.59 million	$1.33	18.27

HCA Healthcare has higher revenue and earnings than Option Care Health. HCA Healthcare is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than Option Care Health, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Summary

HCA Healthcare beats Option Care Health on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About HCA Healthcare

HCA Healthcare, Inc., through its subsidiaries, owns and operates hospitals and related healthcare entities in the United States. It operates general and acute care hospitals that offers medical and surgical services, including inpatient care, intensive care, cardiac care, diagnostic, and emergency services; and outpatient services, such as outpatient surgery, laboratory, radiology, respiratory therapy, cardiology, and physical therapy. The company also operates outpatient health care facilities consisting of freestanding ambulatory surgery centers, freestanding emergency care facilities, urgent care facilities, walk-in clinics, diagnostic and imaging centers, rehabilitation and physical therapy centers, radiation and oncology therapy centers, physician practices, and various other facilities. In addition, it operates behavioral hospitals, which provide therapeutic programs comprising child, adolescent and adult psychiatric care, adolescent and adult alcohol, drug abuse treatment, and counseling services. The company was formerly known as HCA Holdings, Inc. HCA Healthcare, Inc. was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.

About Option Care Health

Option Care Health, Inc. offers home and alternate site infusion services in the United States. The company provides anti-infective therapies; home infusion services to treat heart failures; home parenteral nutrition and enteral nutrition support services for numerous acute and chronic conditions, such as stroke, cancer, and gastrointestinal diseases; immunoglobulin infusion therapies for the treatment of immune deficiencies; and treatments for chronic inflammatory disorders, including crohn’s disease, plaque psoriasis, psoriatic arthritis, rheumatoid arthritis, ulcerative colitis, and other chronic inflammatory disorders. It also offers treatments to manage the progression of neurological disorders, such as multiple sclerosis, duchenne muscular dystrophy, and other neurological disorder; infusion therapies for bleeding disorders, such as hemophilia and von Willebrand diseases; therapies for women with high-risk pregnancies; and other infusion therapies to treat various conditions, including pain management, chemotherapy, and respiratory medications, as well as nursing services. The company markets its services through patient referrals, including physicians, hospital discharge planners, hospital personnel, health maintenance organizations, and preferred provider organizations. Option Care Health, Inc. is headquartered in Bannockburn, Illinois.