Universal Health Services (UHS) shares sank after the hospital oper🍒ator's CFO made comments at an industry conference about the company's outlook for volume of care it provides.

Shares of UHS were down nearly 6% in Monday-afternoon trading. CFO Steve Filton said at a conference that the company and other healthcare competitors have seen "somewhat softer procedural or surgical volumes" in recent quarters, according to a transcript provided by AlphaSense.

Coming out of the pandemic, companies like UHS saw a boom in voluntary procedures as Americans got caught up on care they may have put off, Filton said. Now, however, that volume of care has slowed, with Filton saying it has been "slower to recover back to historical levels than than we might have imagined and expected."

Revenue has stayed stable for UHS because they have raised prices to offset the lower vo😼lume of care people are seeking, but Filton said the company thinks the variables of price and procedural volume will get closer to historical averages over time.

The CFO said the company expects mar꧂gins in its acute care business to return to pre-pandemic levels over the next 18 to 24 months.