Justin Lake: Thanks. As far as my question, I just want to say I’m not sure if this is Dan’s last earnings call, but if it is, it’s been a pleasure to work with you and congrats on the retirement. My question is around the surgery center business. So, Saum, a couple of things. One, there’s been some discussion out there that MedPAC is talking about volumes kind of moderating a bit September into October. Just curious if you’re hearing that out there, seeing anything in your business that would imply a bit of a slowdown? And then can you flesh out a little bit. The last time we were together, the — you did mention the excitement. It feels like there’s been a pickup in the M&A pipeline, the de novo pipeline. Maybe give us a little bit of color in terms of how that’s shaping up going into next year versus how it’s looked the last two or three years? Thanks.
Saum Sutaria: Yes. Hey thanks, Justin. I don’t — I haven’t seen the MedPAC report and I’m not going to comment on October or early fourth quarter volumes other than to say, reiterate what I said before, which is this is shaping up to be a terrific year for volume growth at USPI. The M&A environment is consistently positive. We don’t see that we’re — we don’t see that there’s higher multiples required as centers recover on their own that might have been up for sale over the last couple of years. We have a lot of opportunities in diligence from that perspective. And at the same time, given where interest rates are, we’ve actually gone through a process internally of raising our bar on the assessment process that we use, in particular, around the financial returns and the ability to drive the post-synergy multiples down to where we’ve said they would go.
On the de novo opportunities, those have a lead time, obviously, once you start moving of around 18 months or more. But having this many in the pipeline is great because two things happen from that perspective. One is that you’re usually building new higher-acuity orthopedics-focused centers in markets where physicians haven’t really been in the ASC setting before so it’s a net increase of activity. And two, by moving things into a lower-cost setting, it continues to enhance the value-based care proposition of USPI. And we’re kind of focused on both of those. So, I feel pretty good about both areas at this point heading into 2024. Dan?
Daniel Cancelmi: Hey Justin, it’s Dan. This will be my last earnings call, but thanks for remembering that. I really appreciate that. It’s been really an honor representing the company. And I just want to say thanks to all of the company’s employees, the physicians, all the caregivers, and our volunteers at our hospitals and facilities. They really do amazing things every day. If you spend any time at the hospital, you see that very quickly. So, I just want to thank all of them.
Operator: Thank you. Next question today is coming from Kevin Fischbeck from Bank of America. Your line is now live.
Kevin Fischbeck: Great. Thanks. And I guess I’ll add my thanks to Dan as well. But I guess as far as my question goes, when you were talking about the potential tailwinds into next year, one of the things you spiked out was the post-pandemic recovery from COVID, providing a good operating backdrop into next year. I guess where do you think we are today in that recovery? And I guess I’m interpreting that as a volume comment, but if there’s something else you would also be specing out not quite back to normal on the cost side or whatever it is. Would love to kind of get a sense of where we are in that recovery in your view today?
Saum Sutaria: It’s both. I mean — it’s both. It’s — I mean, the volume recovery, especially in the acute care business and related services on an elective basis will continue to grow. And I think that part of this is, obviously, we had a lot of premature mortality from COVID way back in the beginning, 2020-ish, early 2020 to 2021 and I think as the population continues to age in, despite that premature mortality, we’ll see a tailwind of demand. Now, look, the cost side, whether it be in labor, which is the most obvious or supply chain side still has room to go to normalize. I mean, our performance this year in the Hospital business has been a combination of volume in the high acuity area that we focused on, but also beating our expectations on how much expensive contract labor we would be able to reduce from the business.
And as I said, in this quarter, it came without any cost to capacity because of our hiring efforts. But I still think there’s room — there’s still room to move from a normalization standpoint over the next couple of years. And certainly, that’s the basis of the comment for 2024.
Operator: Thank you. Next question is coming from A.J. Rice from UBS. Your line is now live.
A.J. Rice: Thanks. Hi everybody and best wishes, Dan, as well. Have been struggling a lot about managed care on the call. Where are you at with your contracting for 2024 and 2025? I know you’ve got a lot of national contracts. What kind of increases are you seeing? Are you still getting some incremental bump for the labor challenges that the industry has faced or is it starting to sort of normalize as you look out for the next year or two in rates, any thoughts there?
Sun Park: Hey A.J., this is actually Sun Park speaking on. Thanks for your question. And as I’ve slowly gotten to learn the business here, obviously, managed care is a critical component. Dan mentioned it as part of the tailwind that we do expect to continue to see into 2024. And then as we’ve said historically, we do see commercial rate increases kind of mid-single-digits. And I think more recently, we are seeing some rates at or at the high range of that. And I think that reflects the current inflationary environment that we’re all seeing. So, I think that’s what we’ll say. Thank you.
Operator: Our next question today is coming from Jamie Perse from Goldman Sachs. Your line is now live.
