AMN Healthcare Services (NYSE:AMN) and AdaptHealth (NASDAQ:AHCO) Critical Review

AMN Healthcare Services (NYSE:AMN) and AdaptHealth (NASDAQ:AHCO) are both small-cap healthcare companies, but which is the better business? We will compare the two businesses based on the strength of their earnings, dividends, valuation, institutional ownership, profitability, risk and analyst recommendations.

Analyst Ratings

This is a summary of recent recommendations and price targets for AMN Healthcare Services and AdaptHealth, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
AMN Healthcare Services	0	4	4	0	2.50
AdaptHealth	1	1	7	0	2.67

AMN Healthcare Services presently has a consensus target price of $36.50, suggesting a potential downside of 3.51%. AdaptHealth has a consensus target price of $10.14, suggesting a potential upside of 62.29%. Given AdaptHealth’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts plainly believe AdaptHealth is more favorable than AMN Healthcare Services.

Institutional and Insider Ownership

99.2% of AMN Healthcare Services shares are held by institutional investors. Comparatively, 82.7% of AdaptHealth shares are held by institutional investors. 1.1% of AMN Healthcare Services shares are held by company insiders. Comparatively, 1.9% of AdaptHealth shares are held by company insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that large money managers, hedge funds and endowments believe a company is poised for long-term growth.

Risk and Volatility

AMN Healthcare Services has a beta of 0.4, suggesting that its share price is 60% less volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, AdaptHealth has a beta of 1.42, suggesting that its share price is 42% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Profitability

This table compares AMN Healthcare Services and AdaptHealth’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
AMN Healthcare Services	3.06%	19.92%	5.93%
AdaptHealth	-7.07%	3.36%	1.16%

Valuation & Earnings

This table compares AMN Healthcare Services and AdaptHealth”s revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
AMN Healthcare Services	$2.73 billion	0.54	-$95.70 million	$2.68	14.11
AdaptHealth	$3.24 billion	0.26	-$70.79 million	($1.71)	-3.65

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

Summary

AdaptHealth beats AMN Healthcare Services on 8 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About AMN Healthcare Services

AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. provides healthcare workforce solutions and staffing services to healthcare facilities in the United States. It operates through three segments: Nurse and Allied Solutions, Physician and Leadership Solutions, and Technology and Workforce Solutions. The Nurse and Allied Solutions segment offers travel nurse staffing, labor disruption staffing, local staffing, international nurse and allied permanent placement, and allied staffing solutions. The Physician and Leadership Solutions segment provides locum tenens staffing, healthcare interim leadership staffing, executive search, and physician permanent placement solutions. The Technology and Workforce Solutions segment offers language services, vendor management systems, workforce optimization, and outsourced solutions. The company also provides allied health professionals, such as physical therapists, respiratory therapists, occupational therapists, medical and radiology technologists, lab technicians, speech pathologists, rehabilitation assistants, and pharmacists. It offers its services under the brands, including AMN Healthcare, Nursefinders, HealthSource Global Staffing, O'Grady Peyton International, Connetics, Medical Search International, DRW Healthcare Staffing, and B.E. Smith. AMN Healthcare Services, Inc. was founded in 1985 and is headquartered in Dallas, Texas.

About AdaptHealth

AdaptHealth Corp., together with its subsidiaries, sells home medical equipment (HME), medical supplies, and home and related services in the United States. The company provides sleep therapy equipment, supplies, and related services, such as CPAP and bi-PAP services to individuals suffering from obstructive sleep apnea; medical devices and supplies, including continuous glucose monitors and insulin pumps for the treatment of diabetes; HME to patients discharged from acute care and other facilities; oxygen and related chronic therapy services in the home; and other HME devices and supplies on behalf of chronically ill patients with wound care, urological, incontinence, ostomy, and nutritional supply needs. It also offers wheelchairs, hospital beds, oxygen concentrators, CPAP masks and related supplies, wound care supplies, diabetes management supplies, wheelchair cushion accessories, orthopedic bracing, breast pumps and supplies, walkers, commodes and canes, and nutritional and incontinence supplies. The company services beneficiaries of Medicare, Medicaid, and commercial insurance payors. The company is headquartered in Plymouth Meeting, Pennsylvania.