For most investors, how much a stock's price changes over time is important. Not only can it impact your investment portfolio, but it can also help you compare investment results across sectors and industries.
Another thing that can drive investing is the fear of missing out, or FOMO. This particularly applies to tech giants and popular consumer-facing stocks.
What if you'd invested in HCA Healthcare (HCA) ten years ago? It may not have been easy to hold on to HCA for all that time, but if you did, how much would your investment be worth today?
HCA Healthcare's Business In-Depth
With that in mind, let's take a look at HCA Healthcare's main business drivers.
Headquartered in Nashville, TN, HCA Healthcare is the largest non-governmental operator of acute care hospitals in the United States. At the end of 2025, the company operated 190 hospitals and approximately 2,500 ambulatory sites of care, including surgery centers, freestanding emergency rooms, urgent care centers and physician clinics, in 19 American states and the United Kingdom.
It also operates outpatient health care facilities, which include freestanding ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”), freestanding emergency care facilities, urgent care facilities, walk-in clinics, diagnostic and imaging centers, comprehensive rehabilitation and physical therapy centers, radiation and oncology therapy centers, physician practices and various other facilities.
The company operates in three geographically organized groups: the National, Atlantic and American Groups. HCA generated revenues of $75.6 billion in 2025.
The National Group (accounted for 28.1% of the overall 2025 revenues) had 53 hospitals located in states like Alaska, California, Idaho, Kentucky, Nevada, New Hampshire, North Carolina, Tennessee, Utah and Virginia.
The American Group (35%) has 66 hospitals in states like Colorado, Central Kansas, Louisiana and Texas.
Its Atlantic Group (32.7%) included 63 hospitals located in Florida, Georgia, Northern Kansas, Missouri and South Carolina.
The company also operates eight hospitals in England that are included in the Corporate and Other group (4.2%).
The company's 179 general, acute care hospitals with 50,436 licensed beds provide access to a wide range of services to cater to different medical specialties, such as internal medicine, general surgery, cardiology, oncology, neurosurgery, orthopedics and obstetrics, as well as diagnostic and emergency services. The general, acute care hospitals also provide outpatient services such as outpatient surgery, laboratory, radiology, respiratory therapy, cardiology and physical therapy.
Its seven behavioral hospitals with 714 licensed beds offer child, adolescent and adult psychiatric care. It also provides adolescent and adult alcohol and drug abuse treatment and counseling.
Bottom Line
Putting together a successful investment portfolio takes a combination of research, patience, and a little bit of risk. For HCA Healthcare, if you bought shares a decade ago, you're likely feeling really good about your investment today.
A $1000 investment made in October 2016 would be worth $5,558.84, or a 455.88% gain, as of October 20, 2026, according to our calculations. Investors should note that this return excludes dividends but includes price increases.
Compare this to the S&P 500's rally of 258.66% and gold's return of 215.30% over the same time frame.
Analysts are forecasting more upside for HCA too.
HCA Healthcare's revenues continue to benefit from higher admissions, with the company expecting total revenues of $77-$79.5 billion in 2026. Strategic acquisitions are expanding its network, supporting higher patient volumes and strengthening its market presence. Same-facility admissions increased 1.7% year over year in the first six months of 2026. It also maintains disciplined capital deployment, returning $4 billion to shareholders through $3.6 billion in share repurchases and $354 million in dividends during the first six months. However, persistently rising expenses continue to pressure margins. HCA also faces regulatory headwinds affecting the broader healthcare industry under the current administration. Its substantial debt burden results in high interest costs. As a result, we reiterate our Neutral recommendation on the stock.
Over the past four weeks, shares have rallied 6.79%, and there have been 1 higher earnings estimate revisions in the past two months for fiscal 2026 compared to none lower. The consensus estimate has moved up as well.
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HCA Healthcare, Inc. (HCA): Free Stock Analysis Report
This article originally published on Zacks Investment Research (zacks.com).