Community Health Systems, Inc. Announces First Quarter 2008 Results with Net Operating Revenues of $2.7 Billion

Business Wire, April 29, 2008

(c) EBITDA consists of net income before interest, income taxes, and depreciation and amortization. Adjusted EBITDA is EBITDA adjusted to exclude discontinued operations, loss from early extinguishment of debt and minority interest in earnings. The Company has from time to time sold minority interests in certain of its subsidiaries or acquired subsidiaries with existing minority interest ownership positions. The Company believes that it is useful to present adjusted EBITDA because it excludes the portion of EBITDA attributable to these third party interests and clarifies for investors the Company's portion of EBITDA generated by continuing operations. The Company uses adjusted EBITDA as a measure of liquidity. The Company has included this measure because it believes it provides investors with additional information about the Company's ability to incur and service debt and make capital expenditures. Adjusted EBITDA is the basis for a key component in the determination of the Company's compliance with some of the covenants under the Company's senior secured credit facility, as well as to determine the interest rate and commitment fee payable under the senior secured credit facility.

Adjusted EBITDA is not a measurement of financial performance or liquidity under generally accepted accounting principles. It should not be considered in isolation or as a substitute for net income, operating income, cash flows from operating, investing or financing activities, or any other measure calculated in accordance with generally accepted accounting principles. The items excluded from adjusted EBITDA are significant components in understanding and evaluating financial performance and liquidity. This calculation of adjusted EBITDA may not be comparable to similarly titled measures reported by other companies.

The following table reconciles adjusted EBITDA, as defined, to net cash provided by operating activities as derived directly from the consolidated financial statements for the three months ended March 31, 2008, and 2007 (in thousands):

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(d) Included in income from continuing operations for the three months ended March 31, 2008, is a loss from early extinguishment of debt of $1.3 million with an after-tax impact of $0.9 million related to the repurchase on the open market and cancellation of $62.7 million of Senior Notes and a pre-tax gain of $2.6 million with an after-tax impact of $1.7 million from the sale of some excess land previously held by the Company, resulting in a combined net per share (diluted) gain of $0.01.

(e) Included in discontinued operations are the following:

* The Company's partnership interest in River West L.P., which limited partnership owned and operated River West Medical Center (80 licensed beds) located in Plaquemine, Louisiana, (which partnership interest was sold effective September 1, 2007);

* Northeast Arkansas Medical Center (104 licensed beds) located in Jonesboro, Arkansas, and Barberton Citizens Hospital (312 licensed beds) located in Barberton, Ohio, which were sold during the fourth quarter of 2007;