Universal Health Services: What You Need to Know from UHS‘s 2Q Earnings & Follow-Up with Management

Research evidence excerpt

Universal Health Services: What You Need to Know from UHS‘s 2Q Earnings & Follow-Up with Management

J P M O R G A N North America Equity Research

29 July 2026

Universal Health Services Neutral

UHS, UHS US

What You Need to Know from UHS’s 2Q Earnings & Price (28 Jul 26):$166.22

Follow-Up with Management

Managed Care and Facilities

On Monday, UHS reported 2Q earnings below expectations (see our takeaways Benjamin Rossi AC

here), with performance impacted by ~$63M in collective HWs from higher PLGL (1-212) 622-9603

expense (-$28M), CMS actions taken against the Behavioral Hospital in TX (- benjamin.rossi@jpmorgan.com

$20M), and slower ramping for the DC de novo (-$15M) despite a nice contribution Lisa C. Gill

from the FL DPP OOP benefit (incremental +$25M y/y). With UHS set to take on (1-212) 622-6466

~$140M of incremental EBITDA HWs during 2H26 despite expecting +$150M lisa.c.gill@jpmorgan.com

more in MSPPs, mgmt took down 2026 guidance by ~2% to reflect the additional John Stansel, CFA

adverse elements and set a more realistic volume outlook across segments. This (1-212) 622-0083

john.stansel@jpmorgan.com

also included details in our follow-up that the company’s Prominence Health

Cole Harris

insurance subsidiary played a larger role in the higher trend in Acute Other Opex (1-212) 622-9068

(+240 bps y/y). Although 2Q represented a nice rebound in Acute volumes cole.harris@jpmorgan.com

(including steadier IP surgical trends) and we consider mgmt’s decision to bring J.P. Morgan Securities LLC

down full-yr expectations to be pragmatic since it sets more reasonable growth

hurdles going forward, we believe the softer growth outlook for Behavioral is

particularly concerning as that segment’s turnaround is set to serve as the