Head to Head Contrast: HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) and LifeMD (NASDAQ:LFMD)

HCA Healthcare (NYSE:HCA) and LifeMD (NASDAQ:LFMD) are both healthcare companies, but which is the better business? We will contrast the two businesses based on the strength of their institutional ownership, valuation, dividends, earnings, analyst recommendations, profitability and risk.

Analyst Recommendations

This is a summary of recent ratings for HCA Healthcare and LifeMD, as reported by MarketBeat.com.

	Sell Ratings	Hold Ratings	Buy Ratings	Strong Buy Ratings	Rating Score
HCA Healthcare	1	7	16	0	2.62
LifeMD	1	1	8	0	2.70

HCA Healthcare presently has a consensus target price of $467.61, suggesting a potential downside of 0.49%. LifeMD has a consensus target price of $7.57, suggesting a potential upside of 254.63%. Given LifeMD’s stronger consensus rating and higher probable upside, analysts clearly believe LifeMD is more favorable than HCA Healthcare.

Profitability

This table compares HCA Healthcare and LifeMD’s net margins, return on equity and return on assets.

	Net Margins	Return on Equity	Return on Assets
HCA Healthcare	8.77%	-244.79%	11.10%
LifeMD	0.10%	-168.23%	-31.27%

Institutional and Insider Ownership

62.7% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by institutional investors. Comparatively, 35.5% of LifeMD shares are owned by institutional investors. 1.5% of HCA Healthcare shares are owned by insiders. Comparatively, 17.2% of LifeMD shares are owned by insiders. Strong institutional ownership is an indication that hedge funds, endowments and large money managers believe a stock is poised for long-term growth.

Earnings and Valuation

This table compares HCA Healthcare and LifeMD”s gross revenue, earnings per share (EPS) and valuation.

	Gross Revenue	Price/Sales Ratio	Net Income	Earnings Per Share	Price/Earnings Ratio
HCA Healthcare	$75.60 billion	1.35	$6.78 billion	$29.87	15.73
LifeMD	$194.05 million	0.53	$14.35 million	($0.05)	-42.70

HCA Healthcare has higher revenue and earnings than LifeMD. LifeMD is trading at a lower price-to-earnings ratio than HCA Healthcare, indicating that it is currently the more affordable of the two stocks.

Volatility and Risk

HCA Healthcare has a beta of 1.1, meaning that its stock price is 10% more volatile than the S&P 500. Comparatively, LifeMD has a beta of 1.99, meaning that its stock price is 99% more volatile than the S&P 500.

Summary

HCA Healthcare beats LifeMD on 9 of the 14 factors compared between the two stocks.

About HCA Healthcare

HCA Healthcare, Inc., through its subsidiaries, owns and operates hospitals and related healthcare entities in the United States. It operates general and acute care hospitals that offers medical and surgical services, including inpatient care, intensive care, cardiac care, diagnostic, and emergency services; and outpatient services, such as outpatient surgery, laboratory, radiology, respiratory therapy, cardiology, and physical therapy. The company also operates outpatient health care facilities consisting of freestanding ambulatory surgery centers, freestanding emergency care facilities, urgent care facilities, walk-in clinics, diagnostic and imaging centers, rehabilitation and physical therapy centers, radiation and oncology therapy centers, physician practices, and various other facilities. In addition, it operates behavioral hospitals, which provide therapeutic programs comprising child, adolescent and adult psychiatric care, adolescent and adult alcohol, drug abuse treatment, and counseling services. The company was formerly known as HCA Holdings, Inc. HCA Healthcare, Inc. was founded in 1968 and is headquartered in Nashville, Tennessee.

About LifeMD

LifeMD, Inc. operates as a direct-to-patient telehealth company that connects consumers to healthcare professionals for medical care in the United States. The company offers telehealth platform comprising RexMD, a men's telehealth brand that provides access to virtual medical treatment for a variety of men's health needs from licensed physician; ShapiroMD that provides virtual medical treatment, prescription medications, patented doctor formulated OTC products, topical compounded medications, and medical devices treating male and female hair loss; NavaMD, a female-oriented tele-dermatology that offers virtual medical treatment from dermatologists and other providers; and prescription oral and compounded topical medications to treat aging and acne; and Cleared which provides personalized treatments for allergy, asthma and immunology, including in-home tests for both environmental and food allergies, prescriptions for allergies and asthma and immunotherapies for treating chronic allergies. It also provides LifeMD PC, a direct-to-consumer virtual primary care which includes 24/7 access to a provider for their primary care, urgent care, and chronic care needs; and offers virtual consultations and treatment, prescription medications, diagnostics and imaging, wellness coaching, and more. In addition, the company offers PDFSimpli, an online software as a service platform that allows users to create, edit, convert, sign, and share PDF documents; ResumeBuild which provides digital resume and cover letter services; SignSimpli, a digital signature platform; and LegalSimpli, a provider of legal forms for consumers and small businesses. It sells its products directly to consumers and through e-commerce platforms, as well as through third party partner channels. The company was formerly known as Conversion Labs, Inc. and changed its name to LifeMD, Inc. in February 2021. LifeMD, Inc. was incorporated in 1994 and is headquartered in New York, New York.