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CYH, Community Health Systems Inc.

Health Care Providers & Services capital-intensive Cyclical

Our affiliates are leading providers of healthcare services, developing and operating healthcare delivery systems in 36 distinct markets across 14 states.

We generate revenues by providing a broad range of general and specialized hospital healthcare services and outpatient services to patients in the communities in which we are located.

For the hospitals and other sites of care that we own and operate, we are paid for our services by governmental agencies, private insurers and directly by the patients we serve.

Latest annual: FY2025 10-K

CYH · Community Health Systems Inc.

The business

What it sells, where the money comes from, the kind of company it is.

Revenue · FY2025

$12.5B

−1.2% YoY · 1% 5-yr CAGR

Vital signs · TTM, with 5-yr average

Revenue $12.3B 5-yr avg $12.4B

Gross margin 85% 5-yr avg 84%

Operating margin 12.1% 5-yr avg 8.4%

ROIC 11% 5-yr avg 8%

Owner-earnings margin −2% 5-yr avg −1%

Free cash flow margin −2% 5-yr avg −1%

The business in brief

read the 10-K →

What this business is and what moves its needle, from its own SEC filings.

What it is: Revenue is led by Managed Care and Other Third Party Payors (48%) and Medicare Managed Care (18%), with 2 more lines behind.
Situation: Cyclical. Margins collapse and recover repeatedly across the record; a single year, good or bad, misstates the through-cycle earning power.
What moves the needle: Gross margin has run about 84% and operating margin about 4.9% through the cycle, a wide spread between price and the cost of what it sells — whether that advantage is durable pricing power or a margin that can erode is the question the record is for. The margin is cyclical, swinging between −12% and 12% over the years, so the through-cycle figure carries more than any single year — and the balance sheet at the trough more than the peak. The cash cycle has run negative through the cycle (a median of −86 days): the operation is paid before it pays, so working capital releases cash as the business grows rather than tying it up. Read this kind of business on volume, payer mix and reimbursement. On its own account, the filing leans hardest on pricing power & competition, set against the numbers in what the filing emphasizes, below.
Is it a good business?: Return on capital has rarely cleared the cost of capital (median 5%, above 15% in 1 of 10 years). Owner earnings, the cash-based check, have been thin too. The cycle and the balance sheet decide this one; the worst year tells more than the median, and the rest is in the 10-K.

Every line is arithmetic on the company's filings, shown in full in the sections below.

Where the money comes from

read the 10-K →

Revenue spreads across 5 lines, the largest Managed Care And Other Third Party Payors at 48%.

Revenue by product line, FY2025

Managed Care And Other Third Party Payors48%$6.0B
Medicare Managed Care18%$2.3B
Medicare17%$2.2B
Medicaid16%$2.0B
Self-Pay1%$96M

From the segment footnote of the company's own 10-K. Shares are of total revenue; the profit bar shows each segment's share of segment operating profit, before unallocated corporate costs.

The record

Ten years of arithmetic, read across the cycle.

The record, 2016–2025

realized figures from each filing · older years to the left

2016’16	2017’17	2018’18	2019’19	2020’20	2021’21	2022’22	2023’23	2024’24	2025’25	TTMTTMMar 2026
											Income statement
$18.4B	$15.4B	$14.2B	$13.2B	$11.8B	$12.4B	$12.2B	$12.5B	$12.6B	$12.5B	$12.3B	RevenueRevenue
84%	83%	83%	84%	83%	83%	84%	84%	85%	85%	85%	Gross marginGross mgn
($860M)	($1.9B)	$208M	$650M	$1.1B	$1.4B	$821M	$957M	$542M	$1.5B	$1.5B	Operating incomeOp. inc.
−4.7%	−12.2%	1.5%	4.9%	9.6%	11.3%	6.7%	7.7%	4.3%	11.9%	12.1%	Operating marginOp. mgn
($1.7B)	($2.5B)	($788M)	($675M)	$511M	$230M	$46M	($133M)	($516M)	$509M	$464M	Net incomeNet inc.
—	—	—	—	—	36%	—	—	—	9%	17%	Effective tax rateTax rate
											Cash flow & returns
$1.1B	$773M	$274M	$385M	$2.2B	($131M)	$300M	$210M	$480M	$543M	$126M	Operating cash flowOp. cash
$1.1B	$861M	$700M	$608M	$558M	$540M	$534M	$505M	$486M	$426M	$435M	DepreciationDeprec.
$1.7B	$2.3B	$349M	$442M	$1.1B	($926M)	($300M)	($184M)	$493M	($403M)	($783M)	Working capital & otherWC & other
$744M	$564M	$527M	$438M	$440M	$469M	$415M	$467M	$360M	$335M	$326M	CapexCapex
4.0%	3.7%	3.7%	3.3%	3.7%	3.8%	3.4%	3.7%	2.8%	2.7%	2.7%	Capex / revenueCapex/rev
$393M	$209M	($253M)	($53M)	$1.7B	($600M)	($115M)	($257M)	$120M	$208M	($200M)	Owner earningsOwner earn.
2.1%	1.4%	−1.8%	−0.4%	14.7%	−4.9%	−0.9%	−2.1%	0.9%	1.7%	−1.6%	Owner earnings marginOE mgn
$393M	$209M	($253M)	($53M)	$1.7B	($600M)	($115M)	($257M)	$120M	$208M	($200M)	Free cash flowFCF
2.1%	1.4%	−1.8%	−0.4%	14.7%	−4.9%	−0.9%	−2.1%	0.9%	1.7%	−1.6%	Free cash flow marginFCF mgn
$123M	$6M	$26M	$13M	$1M	$3M	$9M	$38M	$25M	$1M	$6M	AcquisitionsAcquis.
-4%	-12%	1%	5%	13%	9%	4%	5%	5%	16%	11%	ROICROIC
											Balance sheet
$238M	$563M	$196M	$216M	$1.7B	$507M	$118M	$38M	$37M	$260M	$712M	Cash & investmentsCash+inv
$3.2B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$1.9B	$2.1B	$2.0B	$2.2B	$2.3B	$2.1B	$2.1B	ReceivablesReceiv.
$995M	$967M	$887M	$811M	$783M	$830M	$773M	$912M	$913M	$842M	$790M	Accounts payablePayables
$2.2B	$1.4B	$1.5B	$1.4B	$1.1B	$1.2B	$1.3B	$1.3B	$1.4B	$1.2B	$1.3B	Operating working capitalOper. WC
$4.7B	$4.1B	$3.5B	$3.4B	$4.5B	$3.5B	$3.1B	$3.2B	$3.3B	$3.2B	$3.8B	Current assetsCur. assets
$2.9B	$2.4B	$2.4B	$2.3B	$2.8B	$2.4B	$2.2B	$2.1B	$2.3B	$2.2B	$2.6B	Current liabilitiesCur. liab.
1.6×	1.7×	1.5×	1.5×	1.6×	1.5×	1.4×	1.5×	1.4×	1.5×	1.5×	Current ratioCurr. ratio
$6.5B	$4.7B	$4.6B	$4.3B	$4.2B	$4.2B	$4.2B	$4.0B	$3.8B	$3.3B	$3.1B	GoodwillGoodwill
$21.9B	$17.4B	$15.9B	$15.6B	$16.0B	$15.2B	$14.7B	$14.5B	$14.1B	$13.2B	$13.2B	Total assetsAssets
$15.2B	$13.9B	$13.6B	$13.4B	$12.2B	$12.1B	$11.6B	$11.5B	$11.5B	$10.4B	$13.4B	Total debtDebt
$15.0B	$13.3B	$13.4B	$13.2B	$10.5B	$11.6B	$11.5B	$11.4B	$11.4B	$10.1B	$12.7B	Net debt / (cash)Net debt
$1.6B	($767M)	($1.5B)	($2.2B)	($1.6B)	($1.4B)	($1.4B)	($1.4B)	($1.9B)	($1.4B)	($1.5B)	Shareholders’ equityEquity
0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	0.2%	0.2%	0.2%	0.1%	0.1%	0.1%	Stock comp / revenueSBC/rev
											Per share
111M	112M	113M	114M	117M	131M	130M	130M	132M	135M	134M	Shares out (diluted)Shares
$166.51	$137.36	$125.57	$116.14	$101.15	$94.70	$93.89	$95.75	$95.64	$92.47	$91.44	Revenue / shareRev/sh
$-15.54	$-22.00	$-6.99	$-5.93	$4.38	$1.76	$0.35	$-1.02	$-3.91	$3.77	$3.45	EPS (diluted)EPS
$3.55	$1.87	$-2.24	$-0.47	$14.91	$-4.59	$-0.88	$-1.97	$0.91	$1.54	$-1.49	Owner earnings / shareOE/sh
$3.55	$1.87	$-2.24	$-0.47	$14.91	$-4.59	$-0.88	$-1.97	$0.91	$1.54	$-1.49	Free cash flow / shareFCF/sh
$6.72	$5.05	$4.67	$3.85	$3.78	$3.59	$3.19	$3.58	$2.73	$2.48	$2.43	Cap. spending / shareCapex/sh
$14.58	$-6.86	$-13.62	$-19.50	$-13.94	$-10.51	$-10.51	$-10.67	$-14.49	$-10.32	$-10.82	Book value / shareBVPS

Per-share growththe realized rate an owner's share compounded

	9-yr	5-yr
Revenue / share	−6.3%/yr	−1.8%/yr
Owner earnings / share	−8.9%/yr	−36.5%/yr
EPS	—	−3.0%/yr
Capital spending / share	−10.5%/yr	−8.1%/yr

The record, charted

FY2016–2025

Each measure over its full record; the current point and the worst year marked.

Share count

135Mpeak FY2025

ROIC

16%low FY2017

Gross margin

85%low FY2017

Net debt ÷ owner earnings

48.7×peak FY2024

Owner earnings vs. net income

Owner earningsNet income

The accountant's number, and the cash an owner can take; the gap is the tell.

$208Mowner earningsvs.$509Mnet incomelow FY2021

Where the cash went

ReinvestBuybacksDividendsAcquisitionsRetainedBeyond op. cash

Each year's outlays against its operating cash: the mix, and how it drifts. The hatched cap is spending beyond that year's operating cash — financed from the balance sheet or borrowing, not operations.

FY2016FY2025

Owner-earnings bridge

FY2021–FY2025cash-flow statement, SEC EDGAR →

Net income is the accountant's number; owner earnings is the cash an owner could take out. The walk between them, off the cash-flow statement, and whether the gap is widening or holding.

In fiscal 2025 the business reported $509M of profit but $208M of owner earnings: $301M less than the profit line, taken out by capital spending and the timing of cash.

Reported net income$509M

Owner earnings$208M · 2% of revenue

	FY2025	FY2024	FY2023	FY2022	FY2021
Reported net income	$509M	($516M)	($133M)	$46M	$230M
Depreciation & amortizationnon-cash charge added back	+$426M	+$486M	+$505M	+$534M	+$540M
Stock-based compensationreal costnon-cash, but a real cost	+$11M	+$17M	+$22M	+$20M	+$25M
Working capital & othertiming of cash in and out, other non-cash items	−$403M	+$493M	−$184M	−$300M	−$926M
Cash from operations	$543M	$480M	$210M	$300M	($131M)
Capital expenditurecash put back in to keep running and to grow	−$335M	−$360M	−$467M	−$415M	−$469M
Owner earnings	$208M	$120M	($257M)	($115M)	($600M)
Owner-earnings marginowner earnings ÷ revenue	2%	1%	-2%	-1%	-5%

Owner earnings is the cash an owner could pull out without starving the business: operating cash less the capital it must spend to hold its position . The cash-flow statement also adds stock comp back as non-cash, but it is a real cost paid in shares; counted as the expense it is (less $11M), owner earnings is nearer $197M.

Much of fiscal 2025's profit didn't arrive as operating cash; it sits in “working capital & other” above. That can be a real inventory or timing swing, or profit that doesn't run through operating cash at all: a heavy tax year, equity-method earnings, or investment income booked through investing. For a year like this, owner earnings understates the cash earned; the full cash-flow statement carries the rest.

Maintenance capex is estimated as depreciation where a growing business invests above it; free cash flow is the figure the scorecard's free-cash margin reads.

III

Quality & stewardship

Returns, the balance sheet, capital allocation, and pay.

Owner’s Scorecard

FY2025 10-K · source on SEC EDGAR →

Will it survive?

Can it pay its interest? 2.4×

Adequate

Operating income $1.5B ÷ interest expense $615M

What this means
Comfortable in a normal year, but below the margin of safety Graham looked for. Worth checking how stable the coverage has been across a full cycle.
How heavy is the debt, net of cash? $13.1B · 8.8× operating profit

Heavy net debt

Cash $260M − debt $13.4B

What this means
Netting $260M of cash and short-term investments against $13.4B of debt leaves $13.1B owed, about 8.8× a year's operating profit (9.0× on the gross debt, before the cash). Net debt is the leverage figure that matters: the cash is already set against the debt. Strategic or illiquid investments aren't counted here.
How long is cash tied up? -104d

Negative, funded by others

DSO 61 + DIO 0 − DPO 165 days

What this means
Days cash is tied up between paying suppliers and collecting from customers. A negative cycle is a quiet moat: suppliers and customers fund the operation (Buffett's “float”), the company grows on other people's money. (Little or no inventory, a services / asset-light model, so the inventory leg is ~0.)

Is it a good business?

Return on invested capital 5%

Below average through the cycle

10-yr median, range -12%–16%; the latest year is left out — large non-operating charges put its operating line well above pretax profit

Industry peers: median 10%

What this means
The rate the business earns on the money tied up in it, Buffett's north star, because over time a stock tracks the ROIC beneath it. Above ~15% sustained hints at a moat; a return below the cost of capital (~8%) erodes value as a business grows rather than building it — the test Buffett weighs most. The headline is the median of the last 10 years, so one peak or trough year doesn't set the verdict. Asset-light businesses (R&D expensed, little capital) read artificially high, pair this with Owner Earnings.
Owner-earnings margin 2%

Positive this year, negative across the cycle

latest $208M = operating cash $543M − maintenance capex $335M (positive this year), after an earlier loss stretch (10-yr median -0%)

Industry peers: median 7%

What this means
What an owner could take out without starving the business: operating cash less the maintenance capital it must spend to hold its position — Buffett's owner earnings. That's 2% of revenue this year, a -0% median across 10 years. Treating stock comp as the real expense it is (less $11M of SBC) leaves $197M.
Are earnings backed by cash? 1.07×

Cash-backed

Cash from ops $543M ÷ net income $509M

What this means
How much of reported profit showed up as operating cash. Above 1× is reassuring; well below suggests earnings lean on accruals. One year is noisy, growth and working-capital swings distort it, and this is operating cash, not free cash. Watch the multi-year trend.

How is the cash used?

Where do the earnings go? 87%

Returns about half

Dividends + buybacks $182M ÷ Owner Earnings $208M

What this means
Of $208M Owner Earnings, $182M (87%) went back to shareholders, $23M dividends, $159M buybacks. Net of $11M stock comp, the real buyback was about $148M. Returning most of it is the mark of a mature business with little left to reinvest at a high return; reinvesting most could mean a long runway, or empire-building. The split doesn't say which; the return earned on it (see ROIC) does.
Investing or harvesting? 0.79×

Harvesting

Capex $335M ÷ depreciation $426M

What this means
Descriptive, not a grade. Above ~1× means investing faster than assets wear out (growth, or, sustained for years, today's earnings carrying less depreciation than tomorrow's will). Below means spending less than it's wearing out (efficiency, or a melting asset base). The ratio won't tell you which; the filings will.

Graham’s defensive tests · 1 of 5 met

Graham’s numerical criteria for the defensive investor (The Intelligent Investor, ch. 14), run on the filings. A floor of safety, not a buy signal; many fine modern businesses fail his strictest liquidity rules by design.

Adequate size Pass

Revenue ≥ $2B · $12.5B

What this means
Big enough to weather a storm. Graham's 1972 floor was ~$100M of sales (≈ $700M today); we use a $2B revenue line as a conservative modern stand-in.
Strong liquidity Miss

Current ratio ≥ 2× · 1.46×

What this means
Current assets at least twice current liabilities, near-term bills covered without touching the business. Strict by design: many cash-rich modern firms run leaner and miss it, holding their cushion in longer-dated securities.
Conservative debt Miss

Debt ≤ working capital · $13.4B vs $1.0B WC

What this means
Graham's rule that borrowings not exceed net current assets. Capital-heavy and buyback-heavy firms routinely fail it, read it next to interest coverage, not alone.
Earnings stability Miss

A profit every year (10-yr record) · 6 loss years

What this means
Graham wanted earnings in each of the past ten years, the stability a defensive owner leans on.
Dividend record Miss

Uninterrupted dividends · none paid

What this means
An unbroken dividend was Graham's mark of durability. He wanted twenty years; the filings show about ten, and a single suspension breaks the streak. Non-payers, many fine modern compounders, fall outside his defensive net by design.
Earnings growth —

Earnings +33% over the record · —

What this means
Earnings were negative early in the record, a growth rate isn't meaningful.
Moderate price —

P/E ≤ 15 and P/E × P/B ≤ 22.5 · decided by the price

What this means
Graham's valuation gate, the wall he kept between a sound business and a sound investment. Three-year average earnings are $-0.33/share (latest year $3.61), the averaged base the calculator's gate runs on, and book value is $-9.89/share. Enter a price in “What the price implies” just below for the P/E, P/B, and whether it clears. But this is the rule Buffett outgrew: there's no hard P/E law, and a wonderful business can deserve a far richer multiple if the thesis holds, treat it as the bargain-hunter's floor, not a verdict on the price.

Durability & moat, 2016–2025

Whether the record’s returns held, and what the capital reinvested earned.

Profitable years 4 of 10

What this means
Lost money in 6 year(s), look at what happened there before trusting the average.
Return on capital ≥ 15% 1 of 10 yrs

What this means
A moat shows up as a high return on invested capital that holds year after year, not one good vintage.
Operating margin −5% → 8% (3-yr avg ends)

In the filing’s words The record and the words agree: the margin widened and the filing attributes the gain to its own pricing, not volume alone.

What this means
Through the cycle the operating margin widened — about −5% early to 8% lately, median 5% — pricing power intact or improving.
Reinvestment, incremental ROIC returns capital

What this means
The capital base barely grew: this business returns cash through dividends and buybacks rather than reinvesting. Judge it on the cash returned, not on compounding.
Owner earnings growth −7%/yr

What this means
Owner earnings shrank about 7% a year over the record.
Worst year 2017 · −12.2% op. margin

What this means
Operations went underwater in 2017, understand why before trusting the good years.
Share count +2.2%/yr

What this means
The share count is rising, dilution works against you on a per-share basis.

Does AI threaten the moat?

Moderate contestability

AI is likely to reshape costs and some products here without clearly contesting or sparing the core moat; how the company itself frames it is the tell.

In its own filing Framed as a capability

The filing positions AI as something the company uses, not something it fears.

“We are also deploying innovative programs to deliver better outcomes including, for example, remote monitoring for patients with certain chronic conditions, maternal/fetal monitoring using artificial intelligence, or AI, and machine learning, or ML, as well as tele-sitting techno…”

The question is whether a moat the record shows as durable outlasts a technology that lowers the cost of part of what the firm sells. The durability is read in the record above, the filing's own framing of AI beside it; the industry label decides nothing on its own.

Read from the filing's own risk factors, paired with the industry's structure under its SIC code; the durability is read above, the price below.

All figures as filed; the source filing is linked above.

Current Position

as of the latest quarter, Mar 31, 2026

Can the business pay what it owes this year, off the freshest balance sheet: the quality of the assets, the debt actually coming due, and what a low ratio means here.

Current assets$3.8B

Cash & short-term investments$712M
Receivables$2.1B
Other current assets$922M

Current liabilities$2.6B

Debt due within a year$318M
Accounts payable$790M
Other current liabilities$1.5B

Current ratio1.47×all current assets ÷ what's due · Graham looked for 2×

Quick ratio1.47×stricter: inventory excluded

Cash ratio0.28×strictest: cash alone against what's due

Working capital$1.2Bthe cushion left after near-term bills

Debt due this year vs. cash$318M due · $712M cash covered by cash on hand, no refinancing forced · both figures from the Mar 31, 2026 balance sheet

Revenue, latest quarter vs. a year ago−6.1%the freshest read on whether the business is still growing

Current ratio, recent quarters1.5× → 1.5×

Deeper floors

Tangible book value($4.6B)equity stripped of goodwill & intangibles

Net current asset value($10.4B)Graham's net-net: current assets less all liabilities

Debt incl. operating leases$11.0B$601M of it operating leases

From the company's latest filing.

Debt maturity

the debt note, SEC EDGAR →

Not how much it owes, but when it falls due, and against what. The ladder the company files, beside cash on hand and a year's owner earnings.

'26$16M

'27$12M

'28$54M

'29$1.9B

'30$2.8B

later$5.9B

Bars scaled to the largest single year; “later” is everything due after 2030, shown apart since it dwarfs the years.

Due in the next 12 months$16Mthe first rung: what must be repaid or rolled over within the year

Within two years$28Mthe near wall, the part most exposed to today’s credit conditions

Biggest single year$2.8Bin 2030the lumpiest maturity, where a refinancing, if needed, is largest

Total scheduled principal$10.6Bevery year plus what lies beyond, as the footnote totals it

Against what the business has and earns

Cash & short-term investments, Mar 31, 2026$712M

One year of owner earnings (FY2025)$208M

Together, against $16M due next year57.5×

Cash on hand as of Mar 31, 2026 plus a year’s owner earnings comes to $920M against the $16M due in the twelve months after the Dec 31, 2025 schedule: 58 times it.

Maturity schedule extracted from the company’s Dec 31, 2025 annual report and reconciled to the total the table states.

How the cash was used, 2016–2025

Over the record, the business generated $6.1B of operating cash; how management split it reads as a reinvestor, most operating cash is plowed back into the business.

Reinvested$4.8B · 77%
Retained (debt / cash)$1.4B · 23%

Source of fundingOperating cash
Operating cash covered reinvestment and returns; over the span debt fell $1.9B and cash and short-term investments rose $474M.
Net change in share count21.4%
The diluted count rose from 111M to 134M: issuance (stock pay, deals) outran any buybacks, so owners were diluted on net.
Dividend record—
No dividend line was reported in the filing data over the span; the record here neither confirms nor rules out a payout.

Buybacks are gross of stock issued to staff; the share-count line above is the net of that, the figure that decides whether owners gained. The average price paid blends a year of purchases (and any accelerated repurchase), so it is close, not exact. The record of where the cash went and on what terms.

Acquisitions & goodwill

from the balance sheet & the 10-year cash-flow record

Goodwill grows only when a company acquires and falls only when it concedes it overpaid. The size of that bet, the cash put into buying rather than building, and how much has already been written off.

Goodwill & intangibles$3.3B25% of all assets; the premium carried on the balance sheet for businesses acquired

Against book equity—goodwill is this share of book equity; the rest is the company’s own retained and paid-in capital

Cash spent acquiring$245Mover 10 years buying other businesses, against $4.8B of capital spent building

$2.8B written down across 2 years (2016, 2017): goodwill the company has already conceded it overpaid for, charged against earnings. A write-down costs no cash (the cash went out when the deal was signed), but it is management marking its own past judgment to market.

Goodwill, acquired intangibles and equity from the latest balance sheet; acquisition spend and write-downs summed across the 10-year record, from the company's own filings.

Management, ownership & pay

read the proxy →

From the proxy: how much of the business the people running it own, and how they are paid, beside what the business earned for its owners in the same years.

Fiscal year	Chief executive	Pay, as filed	“Actually paid”	Owner earnings
2021	Tim L. Hingtgen	$9.5M	$15.1M	($600M)
2022	Tim L. Hingtgen	$6.3M	$159k	($115M)
2023	Tim L. Hingtgen	$8.3M	$5.9M	($257M)
2024	Tim L. Hingtgen	$7.6M	$7.1M	$120M
2025	Kevin J. Hammons	$4.8M	$3.9M	$208M
2025	Tim L. Hingtgen	$7.9M	−$5.0M	$208M

Both pay figures are the company’s own, from the pay-versus-performance table its proxy statement files. “As filed” is the Summary Compensation Table total: salary, bonus, and equity awards at their value on the day of grant. “Actually paid” is the SEC’s prescribed recalculation, which re-marks those equity awards to what they became as they vested; it can swing far above or below the filed figure in either direction, and negative years occur. Owner earnings are the whole business's, from the record above, for the same fiscal years.

Insider ownership11.1%
The stake all directors and executive officers hold together, per the 2026 proxy: skin in the game, the first thing Munger reads.
CEO pay ratio60:1
What the chief earns for every dollar the median employee makes, per the 2026 proxy. A high ratio alone settles nothing; some businesses are genuinely top-heavy in scarce skill. A runaway figure is where Buffett starts asking whether the board is doing its job.
Stock-based compensation$11M
The slice of the business handed to employees in shares this year, 0% of revenue, equal to 1% of operating profit. Buffett's oldest accounting fight: this is compensation, compensation is an expense, real whether or not the headline earnings admit it. One trap: the cash-flow statement adds SBC back, so the operating cash, and the owner earnings drawn from it, are flattered by exactly this amount; counted as the cost it is, what an owner keeps is lower.

Inverting the record

Invert: instead of why Community Health Systems Inc. is a good business, the question is what would make owning it a mistake, and whether those marks are in the record. Disconfirming tests across 2016–2025.

2 of the 5 tests turned up something to look into; the other 3 came back clean.

Look hereDid the share count rise anyway?21.4%
Diluted shares grew 21.4% over 2016–2025. Owners were diluted on net; each share owns less of the business than it did. Read the buyback line beside this one, not on its own.
Look hereAre "one-time" charges a yearly habit?8 of 10 years
Management took an impairment or write-down in 8 of the last 10 years, $7.6B in all. A charge taken almost every year is not one-time; it is the business — past deals coming due, and an admission the assets were worth less than what was paid. Munger's rule: when the "one-time" keeps happening, it is the business. Read it beside the goodwill the company still carries.

And these came back clean

Is it less profitable than it was?
Did debt outgrow the business?
Did receivables and inventory outpace sales?

Each test is read from the filings and is noisy alone; a flag can mark a cyclical trough or a year of heavy investment as easily as a problem. The filing says which.

What an owner would ask, FY2025

read the 10-K →

Which reported numbers are a judgment call?
Management names Revenue recognition, Acquisitions, Insurance reserves as critical estimates
each rests partly on management's judgment; the filing's note sets out the assumptionsverify →

The questions the record and the charts do not answer on their own; each carries the figure and the place to look.

Peers, Health Care Providers & Services

The same industry, side by side on owner economics. Each figure is a through-cycle median, so a peak or trough year can’t distort it; the group median at the foot is the line to read each against.

Company	Revenue	Gross margin	Op. margin	ROIC	Owner earn. margin
HCAHCA Healthcare Inc.	$75.6B	—	11.7%	16%	10%
UHSUniversal Health	$17.4B	—	10.8%	10%	7%
CYHCommunity Health Systems Inc.	$12.5B	84%	5.8%	5%	0%
EHCEncompass Health	$5.9B	—	15.0%	10%	13%
PACSPACS Group Inc.	$5.3B	—	6.3%	21%	5%
ENSGEnsign Group	$5.0B	20%	7.7%	17%	5%
AHCOAdaptHealth Corp.	$3.2B	18%	6.6%	4%	7%
BKDBrookdale Senior Living Inc.	$3.2B	—	-1.3%	-1%	-1%
Group median	—	20%	7.1%	10%	6%

The price

What a price has to assume.

What the price implies

reverse-DCF

Type today's close and see the owner-earnings growth you'd have to believe to justify it, beside what Community Health Systems Inc. has delivered.

Community Health Systems Inc.’s latest year shows negative owner earnings, a cyclical trough. So the tool opens on the through-cycle base, the cash it would earn at rest; clear the toggle below to read the latest year exactly as reported.

Today’s price $

Through the cycle, Community Health Systems Inc. earns about $34M on its 0.3% median owner-earnings margin. This year’s 1.7% margin runs above that; the reported figure may flatter a peak you'd be paying on. Normalize, below, values the price on that through-cycle figure rather than the latest year. It comes pre-checked here for that reason, the same rule that already normalizes a trough; clear it to price the year as filed.

Base Normalize · through-cycle ($34M) Net of stock comp (−$10M)

—

The assumptions Required return 9% Years of high growth 10 Terminal growth 2.5%

9.0% = the 4.55% 10-year Treasury (Jul 15, 2026) + 4.45 points of equity premium. The rate you require is yours to set.

Enter a price above to run it.

Implied by the price—

Owner-earnings growth · ’16→’25−7%/yr

Owner-earnings yield—

P/E (3-yr earnings ’23–’25)—

P/B—

Graham’s price gate—

Graham capped the multiple at 15×; Buffett and Munger let that rule go: a wonderful business can deserve 50× if the thesis holds. The gate marks the bargain-hunter's floor.

Against a high-grade bond: Graham’s yardstick bond yield%

Prefilled with the 10-year Treasury (4.55%, as of Jul 15, 2026). Edit it for today’s exact figure, or a AAA corporate yield.

Graham measured a stock against the bond you could own instead, the heart of his margin of safety. Enter a price above to weigh the owner-earnings yield against this bond.

Owner earnings ($200M) on 141M shares outstanding, per the 10-Q cover, as of 2026-04-16; net debt $12.7B. The base opens on the through-cycle figure (the latest year sits above the record’s own median, and Graham’s averaging cuts both ways); clear Normalize to use the year as filed. Net of stock comp treats option pay as the expense it is. The dials set the multiple a growth belief justifies; the price, and every dollar on this page, is yours.

Weigh CYH against another business →

The owners of CYH: the meeting and the votes →

Cite: Owner Scorecard, "Community Health Systems Inc. (CYH), the owner's record," https://ownerscorecard.com/c/CYH, data as of 2026-07-09.

Manual order: ← CXW its page in the Manual CYRX →

Industry order: ← CON the Health Care Providers & Services chapter DVA →