Community Psychiatric Centers Expects Dip in Profits

Community Psychiatric Centers said last week that, despite a rise in patient admissions this quarter, it expects earnings of less than 5 cents a share.

For the third quarter, the company’s earnings per share came to 5 cents. While profit for the current three months is projected to be slightly less, the fact that earnings have not changed much might signal that the company may be coming out of a slump. For the second quarter, the company saw a 54% decline in profit from the same period last year.

Earnings were so lackluster in 1991 that the company pulled out of a proposed acquisition of a Texas firm after reporting a 98% drop in profit for the third quarter.

The company’s estimates of fourth-quarter earnings this year came as it announced that admissions rose by 11% from the same period last year and that the average length of stay in the psychiatric network increased by 4.5%.

The company, based in Laguna Hills, is one of the nation’s largest chains of psychiatric hospitals, operating 50 facilities in the United States, Puerto Rico and the United Kingdom. It has suffered recently from a general slump in the hospital industry and a growing reluctance among insurance companies to pay for extended hospital stays.