In this piece, we will take a look at the 25 best hospitals in the U.S. For more hospitals, head on over to 5 Best Hospitals in the U.S.
Healthcare is one of the most lucrative industries in America, with hefty salaries for doctors and significantly high prices for services that require most people to hold medical insurance. As opposed to some other developed countries, such as the U.K. and Canada, both of which rely on state funded healthcare and also have higher income tax rates to fund these expenditures, the healthcare system in the US has glaring issues and problems. In Canada, the Health Act funds most hospitals and covers basic healthcare needs. For other areas, such as dental and eye care, patients have to use their own funds. Similarly, in England, Wales, and Scotland, the National Health Service (NHS) funds doctors and other facilities to provide primary healthcare.
America also has some of the highest per capita spending on healthcare as well, with data from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) showing that as of 2021, National Health Expenditure (NHE) per capita in the U.S. stood at $12,914. In terms of total expenditure, health expenditure was one of the largest segments of the American gross domestic product (GDP), with total spending sitting at a stunning $4.3 trillion to account for 18.3% of the total pie. Within the total expenditure, private health insurance and out of pocket spending continued to account for a worryingly large proportion, as they sat at $1.2 trillion, or made up 5.8% of the total expenditure. The federal government was still the largest healthcare spender in America, pumping out 34% of the total expenditure, while state and local governments added another 15% - ensuring that almost half of all the spending in the U.S. came in one form of government support or the other.
Looking at the future, the CMS believes that spending growth will be commensurate with growth in the GDP, as both will grow at 5.1% annually until 2030. However, the effects of the current economic turmoil on these estimates is uncertain, especially since a significant number of economists believe that the American economy can enter a recession later this year. Building on this, America leads the world in healthcare expenditure per capita as measured in international dollars, as according to the World Health Organization, American health expenditure was $11,702 and the second highest spender was Switzerland with an international dollar expenditure of $8,493. While Switzerland does not have government funding hospitals like England, it does have universal healthcare (unlike the U.S.) which stops insurance providers from profiting off of basic insurance plans to ensure that the highest number of people can afford coverage.
As a whole, the hospital industry in the U.S. is a highly lucrative sector. A research report from Grand View Research outlines that the U.S. hospital facilities market was worth $1.5 trillion in 2022. Despite this massive size, the sector still has a high compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 7.62% for the forecast period between 2022 and 20230. Through this, the industry is estimated to be worth $2.5 trillion by the end of 2030. This high growth is partially attributed to the coronavirus pandemic since the research firm outlines that the market decreased by 2.2% between 2019 and 2020 as hospitals were forced to divert all their resources to care for COVID 19 patients. In fact, the revenue impact on hospitals was also quite large during the pandemic's early peak, as between the four-month period of March to June 2020, hospitals lost more than $200 billion in revenue. Grand View Research adds that a backlog of all these cases can stimulate the sector's revenue growth, and rising life expectancy in America is also seeing a higher number of older patients utilize the facilities for their healthcare needs.
This backlog clearing in the market is evident on the ground, with Doug Coltharp, the chief financial officer of Encompass Health Corporation (NYSE:EHC), sharing during the firm's fourth quarter of 2022 earnings analyst call conference:
As Mark stated, we are very pleased with our Q4 results. Revenue for the quarter increased 9.1% over the prior year to $1.14 billion, and adjusted EBITDA increased 16.4% to $232.7 million. We continued to see strong volume growth in Q4. Discharges grew 7.3%, which combined with a 2.2% increase in revenue per discharge, to drive 9.6% inpatient revenue growth. On a same-store basis, discharges grew 4.2%. For the full year 2022, discharges increased 6.8%, and that was on top of 8.7% growth in 2021. In 2021, when the clinical labor market began tightening, and contract labor and shift bonuses started to rise, we made the strategic decision to continue to admit appropriate patients regardless of the financial burden to our company.
With these details in mind, let's take a look at some top hospitals in America.
25 Best Hospitals in the U.S.
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Our Methodology
To compile our list, we consulted U.S. News, Healthgrades, and Newsweek's best hospitals in America rankings to reach consensus opinion-based rankings. For the U.S. News and Newsweek rankings, a hospital was assigned a score similar to its ranking, while for Healthgrades, it received a score inversely corresponding to its total awards. The scores were then averaged to reach a final ranking. The lower the score, the better the hospital. Out of the final list of 35 hospitals, the top 25 hospitals in the U.S. are listed below.
25 Best Hospitals in the U.S.
25. Barnes-Jewish Hospital
Insider Monkey's Score: 21
Barnes-Jewish Hospital is the teaching hospital for the Washington University School of Medicine. It is one of the largest hospitals in Missouri.
24. University of Chicago Medical Center
Insider Monkey's Score: 21
University of Chicago Medical Center is one of the oldest hospitals in the U.S. since it was set up in 1898. It is located on The University of Chicago Campus.
23. Vanderbilt University Medical Center
Insider Monkey's Score: 20.7
Vanderbilt University Medical Center is a Tennessee-based medical services provider which employs tens of thousands of people and has close to two thousand beds.
22. Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center
Insider Monkey's Score: 20.7
Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center is the teaching center of the Harvard Medical School. It receives hundreds of millions of dollars in research funding annually.
21. Rush University Medical Center
Insider Monkey's Score: 19
Rush University Medical Center is based in Chicago, Illinois. It is one of the top neurology and orthopedics hospitals in America.
20. Duke University Hospital
Insider Monkey's Score: 18
Duke University Hospital is the teaching hospital of Duke University. It has close to one thousand bends and strong cancer and cardiology divisions.
19. Mayo Clinic - Jacksonville
Insider Monkey's Score: 16.3
Mayo Clinic - Jacksonville is one of the three Mayo Clinic hospitals in America. It is one of the top hospitals in Florida.
18. Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania
Insider Monkey's Score: 15.7
The Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania is associated with the University of Pennsylvania's Penn Medical School. It is the oldest university teaching hospital in America.
17. Michigan Medicine
Insider Monkey's Score: 15.7
Michigan Medicine has a multi-billion dollar endowment and is the teaching hospital of the University of Michigan. It is one of the biggest surgical centers in America, with 66 operating rooms.
16. UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center
Insider Monkey's Score: 14.7
UCLA Santa Monica Medical Center is one of the best treatment centers in America for victims of rape and child sexual abuse. It was also the birthplace of Shirley Temple.
15. University of California, San Francisco Medical Center
Insider Monkey's Score: 14.7
The University of California, San Francisco Medical Center is a teaching hospital of the University of California system. It was set up in 1907.
14. Mount Sinai Hospital
Insider Monkey's Score: 14.7
Mount Sinai Hospital is more than 150 years old since it was founded in 1852. It is the teaching hospital of the Icahn School of Medicine.
13. Mayo Clinic - Phoenix
Insider Monkey's Score: 14.3
Mayo Clinic - Phoenix is the out of state campus of the Mayo Clinic in Rochester. It is a general, private, and nonprofit hospital.
12. Brigham and Women's Hospital
Insider Monkey's Score: 13.3
Brigham and Women's Hospital is a teaching hospital of the Harvard Medical School. It is one of the largest research hospitals in the world.
11. NYU Langone Health
Insider Monkey's Score: 12.7
NYU Langone Health is one of the oldest healthcare facilities in the U.S. It traces its roots back to the early 19th century and has more than 4,000 doctors.
10. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center
Insider Monkey's Score: 12.3
Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center is one of the medical centers of the University of California, Los Angeles. It is one of the few hospitals in America that has produced a Nobel Prize winner.
9. Houston Methodist Hospital
Insider Monkey's Score: 12
Houston Methodist Hospital is associated with Weill Cornell Medical College. It has strong biomedical and engineering medicine research divisions.
8. NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital
Insider Monkey's Score: 12
NewYork-Presbyterian Hospital is associated with the Cornell and Columbia Universities. It is one of the largest hospitals in the world with more than 2,000 beds.
7. Northwestern Medicine
Insider Monkey's Score: 12
Northwestern Medicine is a nonprofit hospital in Chicago, Illinois.
6. Stanford University Medical Center
Insider Monkey's Score: 10
Stanford University Medical Center is a teaching hospital for the Stanford University School of Medicine. It is one of the few hospitals with a helicopter.
