The highest paid executive at Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare was paid 356 times more than the health system's median employee in 2023, according to a March 15 proxy statement filed with the Securities and Exchange Commission.
CEO Sam Hazen's total compensation was $21,315,984, and the compensation of the health system's median compensated employee was $59,816.
The second-highest-paid HCA executive, Jon Foster, executive vice president and COO, was paid $8,699,360. The third, Bill Rutherford, executive vice president and CFO, was paid $5,582,431.
The company used a compensation measure that included total gross payroll wages received to identify the median compensated employee, according to the proxy statement. HCA's CEO-to-worker pay ratio was 254 in 2022, according to that year's SEC filing.
The SEC requires public companies to disclose how CEO pay stacks up with the median employee's overall pay.