Two Healthcare Stocks Worth Watching in 2026
March 24, 3:33 pm
Wall Street moves fast. By the time a strong earnings report lands on financial headlines, the easy money is often already made. The investors who consistently get ahead of the crowd aren't just reading income statements. They're watching the signals that precede those income statements: job postings, website traffic, employee sentiment, insider transactions.
This is what alternative data is about. And right now, two healthcare stocks are lighting up the AltIndex dashboard in a way that merits a serious look: Nutex Health (NUTX) and Encompass Health (EHC). Both operate in different corners of the healthcare delivery space, and both are showing a compelling mix of strong fundamentals and alt data tailwinds. Let's dig in.
Encompass Health (EHC): The Steady Compounder
If Nutex is the high-octane growth story, Encompass Health is the disciplined compounder. It's the kind of stock that doesn't make noise but quietly delivers year after year. As the largest owner and operator of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals in the United States, Encompass runs a network of 173 hospitals across 39 states and Puerto Rico, serving patients recovering from strokes, joint replacements, neurological conditions, and major injuries.
The business model is remarkably durable: an aging U.S. population with growing demand for rehabilitation services, a national footprint that competitors would spend decades trying to replicate, and a steady stream of Medicare and insurance reimbursements that provide visible, recurring revenue.
Latest earnings: A "stellar" 2025
Encompass Health closed out 2025 on a high note. CEO Mark Tarr called Q4 performance "very strong, capping a stellar 2025," and the numbers back that up.
Revenue growth has been consistent at around 10 to 12% per year for several years running, driven by more patient discharges and higher reimbursement rates per discharge. In Q4 2025, total discharges grew 5.3% year-over-year while net patient revenue per discharge rose 4.1%, showing Encompass is extracting more value from each patient interaction.
The company also expanded capacity aggressively in 2025, adding 517 inpatient rehabilitation beds through eight new hospitals and 127 bed additions to existing facilities. New beds today become revenue-generating capacity tomorrow.
Financial health: Built to last
Encompass carries about $2.4 billion in long-term debt, which sounds large until you examine the context. The company's leverage ratio (debt to adjusted EBITDA) sits at approximately 2.0x, down from 2.3x a year ago and meaningfully lower than its historical levels above 3x. Debt is well covered by operating cash flow, and the balance sheet has a Piotroski F-Score of 8 out of 9, a rigorous multi-factor measure of financial health where 7 to 9 signals strong and improving fundamentals. The Altman Z-Score is 3.5, firmly in the low-bankruptcy-risk zone.
The company also returned capital to shareholders: $158 million in buybacks during 2025, with $332 million of repurchase capacity remaining, plus a quarterly dividend. Return on equity stands at 23.2%. These are not the metrics of a company in distress. They're the metrics of a mature, highly profitable healthcare franchise.
The Alternative Data Insights
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↑Web traffic up ~10% year-over-year. A sustained increase in organic traffic suggests growing patient demand and brand awareness. For a healthcare company, web visits often correlate directly with inbound patient inquiries and referrals, making them a leading indicator of future discharge volume and revenue.
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↑70% of employees report a positive business outlook in online reviews, with sentiment trending up. Employee outlook is one of the most under-appreciated leading indicators in equities research. Employees see internal operations, pipeline, and morale before any of it hits an earnings report. When 7 in 10 employees feel good about where the company is headed, that's a meaningful signal, especially in a labor-intensive healthcare business where workforce engagement directly impacts care quality and operational efficiency.
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↑LinkedIn headcount up ~12% year-over-year. Encompass is actively growing its workforce in parallel with its physical expansion. The combination of 517 new beds added in 2025 and a 12% employee growth rate tells a coherent story: the company is hiring ahead of capacity and preparing for further scale. In our experience tracking headcount data at AltIndex, sustained hiring in healthcare delivery companies reliably precedes revenue growth. You can't treat more patients without more staff.
Here's why these signals matter in combination: web traffic growth says patients are finding Encompass. Employee sentiment growth says internal operations are running well. Workforce expansion says the company is confident enough in its future to invest in headcount. Taken together with consistent 10 to 12% revenue growth and a company that routinely beats earnings estimates, EHC looks like a stock where the alternative data is reinforcing the financial story, not contradicting it.
Risks to consider
Encompass Health carries meaningful long-term debt (~$2.4B). While manageable at current earnings levels, any deterioration in Medicare reimbursement rates would put pressure on margins. A significant portion of revenue comes from government programs, meaning policy changes in Washington are a key variable to monitor. Additionally, the company is in active expansion mode, so capital requirements remain elevated and execution risk on new hospital openings is real.
Nutex Health (NUTX): The High-Velocity Growth Story
Nutex Health is a different kind of healthcare bet: smaller, faster-growing, and carrying more risk alongside more potential upside. The company operates a network of 27 micro-hospitals and hospital outpatient departments across 12 states, combined with a Population Health Management division that runs primary care-centric physician networks.
Micro-hospitals are a fascinating and relatively new model: smaller footprint, lower overhead than traditional hospitals, and strategically located in underserved or high-growth suburban areas. They provide emergency services, inpatient observation, and specialized outpatient procedures, capturing patients who would otherwise drive 45 minutes to a full-sized hospital. As healthcare increasingly moves toward decentralized, convenient access points, Nutex is well-positioned in an interesting niche.
The company has also been leveraging the federal No Surprises Act's Independent Dispute Resolution (IDR) process to recover what management believes to be fairer reimbursements from commercial insurers, a strategy that has dramatically reshaped its financial trajectory over the past two years.
Latest earnings: Explosive growth, with an asterisk
Nutex's 2025 numbers are genuinely eye-catching. Full-year revenue of $875.3 million represents an 82.4% increase over 2024, which itself was up 93.8% over 2023. The company swung from a net loss of $45.8 million in 2023 to net income of $52.1 million in 2024 to $70.8 million in 2025. Adjusted EBITDA jumped 152.6% to $259.6 million. Operating cash flow reached $248.1 million for the full year.
The balance sheet is a genuine standout for a growth-stage healthcare company: $185.6 million in cash against just $29.2 million in long-term debt as of year-end 2025. That's essentially a net cash position in a sector where many companies carry multi-billion-dollar debt loads. The company has also announced a second stock repurchase program, underscoring management's conviction that the stock is undervalued at current levels.
One important asterisk: a meaningful portion of Nutex's revenue acceleration has been driven by IDR arbitration recoveries, which are favorable rulings in disputes with commercial insurers over out-of-network billing. Management has framed this as a sustainable element of its revenue cycle strategy, not a one-time windfall. The company has also been restating some prior period financials, which warrants careful monitoring, though management has noted the restated figures are "materially the same" as originally reported. Investors should track whether IDR-driven revenue proves durable over time.
The Alternative Data Insights
This is where Nutex gets really interesting. The alternative data signals coming off this company right now are unusually concentrated and aligned.
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↑Multiple insiders buying in the past two weeks. Director Frank E. Jaumot purchased 150 shares at ~$93.55 on March 20. President Warren Hosseinion bought 252 shares at ~$94.07 on March 19. Director Kelvin Spears made an open-market purchase on March 17. Chief Legal Officer Pamela W. Montgomery also added shares. These are not routine RSU vestings. They are open-market cash purchases by people with full visibility into the company's internal operations and pipeline. When multiple insiders buy simultaneously after a period of price weakness, that's one of the most reliable signals in the alternative data universe.
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↑Web traffic has roughly doubled over the last two months. A doubling in web traffic is not normal. For a healthcare company, this could reflect geographic expansion into new markets (Nutex opened its Archview ER & Hospital in St. Louis in December 2025 and reopened Bayou City ER in Houston in January 2026), growing awareness of the micro-hospital model, or increased patient acquisition efforts. Sustained high traffic correlates with patient volumes, and patient volumes drive revenue.
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↑Job postings on Glassdoor have doubled in the last couple of months. Companies don't post jobs they don't plan to fill. A doubling in open positions, especially for a company of Nutex's size, signals rapid operational scaling. Combined with the company's stated growth plan and recent new hospital openings, this hiring surge is consistent with a company preparing for a higher level of activity. At AltIndex, we treat sustained hiring acceleration as one of the strongest forward-looking growth signals available.
What makes this cluster of signals particularly compelling is their internal consistency. Insiders are buying with cash, betting their own money. Web traffic is rising, meaning patients are engaging. Hiring is accelerating, meaning the company is building capacity. These three signals are mutually reinforcing: they tell a unified story of a company in active growth mode that its own leadership believes is undervalued.
The stock is down roughly 46% year-to-date as of late March 2026, despite posting an 82% revenue gain and swinging to strong profitability. That divergence between operating performance and stock price is exactly the kind of setup where alternative data gives investors an edge, because the data on the ground is telling a different story than the market price.
Risks to consider
The most significant risk with Nutex is IDR revenue durability. A meaningful share of 2025 revenue growth was powered by successful insurance arbitration claims. If regulators tighten the IDR process or insurers find ways to limit payouts, revenue could fall short of expectations. The financial restatements during 2025, while described as immaterial, do create a credibility overhang that some institutional investors may be cautious about. With 27 facilities across 12 states, Nutex is still a relatively small operator in a competitive healthcare market, and execution risk on new hospital openings remains. The low long-term debt is a genuine positive, but the company's profitability track record is still relatively short. Investors with a lower risk tolerance should size positions accordingly.
What Standard Financial Data Misses
The mainstream financial press will cover Encompass Health when it beats earnings consensus. They'll cover Nutex when a big-name analyst upgrades the stock. By then, the price will have already moved.
The AltIndex thesis is simple: the data that precedes those events is already out there. Web traffic changes weeks before a quarterly report. Employee sentiment shifts as internal culture and pipeline evolve. Job postings go live before new revenue is recognized. Insiders buy before institutional investors catch on.
For both NUTX and EHC, the alternative data picture right now is aligned with the financial story, or ahead of it.
Want more healthcare stock ideas backed by alternative data? Explore AltIndex's Best Healthcare Stocks page, updated in real time.
Disclaimer: The information provided is for educational and informational purposes only and should not be construed as financial or investment advice. All investments involve risk, and you should conduct your own research or consult a qualified professional before making any investment decisions.
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