There is still a "great deal of uncertainty" around how a $535 million verdict against UHS will affect the hospital system's finances, CFO Steve Filton said.
In March, an Illinois jury ordered a behavioral health subsidiary of Universal Health Services to pay $535 million in damages in a negligence case.
In a previous regulatory filing, the health system called the verdict "unprecedented" for single-plaintiff injury cases in Champaign County, Ill. An attorney representing Pavilion Behavioral Health, the UHS subsidiary in the case, told Becker's the company intends to challenge the verdict.
On an April 25 call with investors, transcribed by Seeking Alpha, Mr. Filton said the case was unprecedented "both in terms of our own history and cases with similar fact patterns, it was unprecedented in terms of verdicts in that specific jurisdiction, et cetera."
Mr. Filton said there is still uncertainty around the final verdict, and there has not been a measurable impact on the company's financial statements.
Another large behavioral health provider, Acadia Healthcare, paid $400 million in October to settle three cases alleging a nonprofit operated by a now-shuttered New Mexico facility placed children in a foster care setting where they were repeatedly sexually abused.
Mr. Filton said the large settlement awards in the space have not changed UHS' overall approach to its behavioral health business.
"We are very focused on the things we need to do to work through this verdict and to challenge it and appeal it if necessary, at several different levels of the judicial system," Mr. Filton said. "But at the moment, I don't think it's having an impact on the way we think about the business."