Question-and-Answer Session
Operator
(Operator Instructions) Thank you. And we'll proceed with Christine Arnold with Morgan Stanley. Your line is now open.
Christine Arnold - Morgan Stanley
Good morning. A couple of questions. January volumes are improving relative to fourth quarter but still down 2%, can you help us understand how you kind of developed confidence in your kind of flat assumption for admissions growth in 2008 given what we're seeing in January?
Bill Carpenter
Yeah. Keep in mind Christine, when you look at the fourth quarter volumes were down approximately 4%, if you look through the pervious three quarters and you blend all those together on a same-store basis, our volume was down about 1% for the year, adjusted admissions were up about 1.5% for the year. Those two relate very nicely to the bottom-end of our range that we gave you for 2008. So we know there are some variable abilities for the quarter, but as we looked at January, as we looked at this waiting of the CDC information that we had applied to our markets [are those] with the volume trends that we see we have seen about half of the decline that we saw in the fourth quarter comeback so far in January. To early to tell what that means for February and March, but based on those trends we feel very comfortable with bottom-end of the ranges and it's very consistent with what we saw for 2007 as a whole.
Christine Arnold - Morgan Stanley
Is it accurate to -- sorry go ahead.
David Dill
Well as I said, and with the initiatives that we have been putting in place, I feel good about the traction that we're beginning to see on that and so that may speak a little bit more to the upper end of the range.
Christine Arnold - Morgan Stanley
So is it accurate to say that based from a CDC data that this January's flu season was worst than the year ago Januarys and yet you are still down 2%, or do you think January's flu season for you is less than 10s and helps to explain why you are down to?
Bill Gracey
Christen, this is Gracey. What I would say there is to really be very specific, first couple of weeks of January that we're still in our particular markets no flu traction whatsoever. It kicked up very positively in the third week and a kicked in for real finally in our particular markets in the fourth week of January. That may help you see why we're saying albeit it was down overall for the month, it was trending up as we got toward the end of month and you can see that we feel like at least there is a positive momentum, I need to say positive momentum flu wise -- but positive momentum flu wise.
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