Behold one of the most dangerous denizens of the Wall Street bestiary: laqueumvilis, also known as the value trap. Every few months for the past few years, I've read about some analyst or reasonably well-known fund manager making a value call on Tenet Healthcare (NYSE:THC), the country's second-largest hospital operator. Pull up a five-year chart, though, and you'll see that just about every one of those folks has gotten skewered by that call.

Maybe Tenet has in fact hit bottom, but I wouldn't bet on it. This company still has a bunch of hurdles to surmount.

Let's start first with the basic financial operations. Operating revenues were down this quarter (and up very slightly on a "same-store" basis) and admissions were down on both an overall and same-facility basis. Though operating margins improved slightly, bad debt expense is still problematic, and the company is consuming cash.

That's just the tip of the iceberg. The government has Tenet squarely in its sights, and it's not giving in. For instance, Tenet won two separate mistrial "victories" in a case involving the company's recruiting practices at a San Diego hospital. Apparently unable to win a jury trial, the government (via the Office of the Inspector General) accused Tenet of violating anti-kickback statutes and threatened to withhold federal payments -- essentially a death sentence for the facility. Bowing to the seemingly inevitable, Tenet today announced a small civil settlement with the government and agreed to sell or close the hospital in question.

But that's not all. There's still a federal matter concerning Medicare billing to resolve. And though some thought the mistrial in the San Diego case would be a starting point for an overall settlement with the government, it doesn't seem like the Feds are in a mood to bargain.

Wait, there's more! Some Tenet facilities continue to bleed money (like four of the five hospitals they run in Philadelphia), and its bad debt expense is worse than that of rivals such as HCA (NYSE:HCA). Its margins are weak relative to similarly sized peers like Community Health (NYSE:CYH), Triad (NYSE:TRI), or Health Management Associates (NYSE:HMA). And oh, by the way, there are more than a few people out there who believe the company willfully engaged in criminal acts (a charge that has yet to be proved in court, as far as I know).

Is there value here? Almost certainly. But don't confuse this with anything resembling a sure thing. A lot of smart people have already gotten spanked here, so approach with caution.

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Fool contributor Stephen Simpson has no financial interest in any stocks mentioned (that means he's neither long nor short the shares).