Understanding Hospital Care
What patients and families should know
The United States has 5,426 Medicare-certified hospitals across 56 states and territories, providing everything from emergency trauma care to planned surgeries and specialized treatments. 83% of these facilities (4,499 hospitals) offer emergency services, ensuring critical care access in communities nationwide. The average CMS quality rating is 3.1 stars out of 5.
Texas leads the nation with 465 hospitals. CMS evaluates every Medicare-certified hospital on dozens of quality measures and assigns an overall star rating from 1 to 5, making it easier for patients to compare facilities. When choosing a hospital, quality ratings, available specialties, and proximity all matter, and the right choice depends on your specific care needs.
Types of hospitals you can compare:
Acute Care Hospitals: General hospitals providing a broad range of inpatient and outpatient services including emergency care, surgery, intensive care, labor and delivery, and diagnostic imaging.
Critical Access Hospitals: Small rural hospitals with 25 or fewer beds that provide essential healthcare services to underserved communities. They receive special Medicare reimbursement to remain financially viable.
Children's Hospitals: Specialized facilities focused exclusively on pediatric care from newborns to adolescents, with child-specific treatments, equipment, and care teams trained in pediatric medicine.
Psychiatric Hospitals: Specialized facilities providing inpatient mental health treatment including crisis stabilization, medication management, therapy programs, and long-term psychiatric care.
Find Hospitals by Location
Browse hospitals in major cities or select your state
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Choosing the Right Hospital
Key factors to evaluate when selecting a hospital for your care
Quality Ratings
Start with the CMS overall star rating, which synthesizes dozens of quality measures into a single 1-to-5 score. Hospitals rated 4 or 5 stars consistently perform above average on mortality, safety, readmission, and patient experience measures.
Specialties & Services
Make sure the hospital offers the specific services you need, whether that is cardiac surgery, cancer treatment, orthopedics, maternity care, or trauma services. Hospitals that perform more procedures in a specialty tend to achieve better patient outcomes.
Emergency Services
83% of hospitals offer emergency departments, but capacity and capabilities vary. Level I trauma centers handle the most severe injuries with 24/7 specialists, while smaller emergency departments may transfer complex cases. Verify what your nearest hospital can handle.
Patient Safety
Review healthcare-associated infection rates (MRSA, C. diff, surgical site infections), patient fall rates, and serious complication rates. CMS publicly reports safety data that helps identify hospitals with strong safety cultures and protocols.
Insurance & Medicare
Confirm the hospital is in your insurance network before scheduling non-emergency care. All hospitals listed here are Medicare-certified, but coverage details (copayments, deductibles, and benefit limits) vary by plan and length of stay.
Location & Access
Proximity matters, especially for emergency care and conditions requiring frequent follow-up visits. Consider travel time, parking availability, public transit access, and whether the hospital offers telehealth options for post-discharge follow-up.
Understanding Hospital Quality Ratings
How CMS calculates the overall star rating for hospitals
The CMS Hospital Compare program assigns each Medicare-certified hospital an overall quality rating from 1 to 5 stars. This rating is calculated from up to 47 individual quality measures grouped into seven categories, each weighted differently in the final score. Understanding these categories helps patients make informed decisions about where to receive care.
Mortality: Measures how often patients die within 30 days of being admitted for serious conditions like heart attack, heart failure, pneumonia, stroke, and COPD. Lower mortality rates indicate better clinical outcomes.
Safety of Care: Tracks healthcare-associated infections (MRSA, C. diff, surgical site infections, catheter infections), patient falls, and other complications. Hospitals with strong safety protocols score higher on these measures.
Readmission: Measures how often patients are readmitted to any hospital within 30 days of discharge. High readmission rates may signal inadequate discharge planning or follow-up care.
Patient Experience: Based on the HCAHPS survey, which captures responses from patients about nurse and doctor communication, staff responsiveness, pain management, discharge information, cleanliness, and quietness of the hospital environment.
Timely & Effective Care: Evaluates how quickly and effectively hospitals deliver recommended treatments, including time to administer antibiotics, door-to-balloon time for heart attack patients, and flu vaccination rates for healthcare workers.
Efficient Use of Medical Imaging: Measures whether hospitals use imaging tests (CT scans, MRIs) appropriately and avoid unnecessary radiation exposure, such as follow-up CT scans for low-risk chest pain patients.
Overall Effectiveness: A composite that weighs all six categories above, with mortality and safety receiving the highest weight. The final star rating helps patients quickly compare hospitals across all quality dimensions.
Frequently Asked Questions
Common questions about hospitals
How many hospitals are listed on OurHealthNetwork?
We list 5,426 Medicare-certified hospitals across 56 states and territories, including acute care hospitals, critical access hospitals, children's hospitals, and psychiatric hospitals.
How are hospital quality ratings determined?
CMS rates hospitals from 1 to 5 stars based on seven measure groups: mortality, safety of care, readmission, patient experience, timely and effective care, efficient use of medical imaging, and overall effectiveness. These ratings are updated annually.
What types of hospitals can I find?
You can find acute care hospitals offering a broad range of inpatient and outpatient services, critical access hospitals serving rural communities, children's hospitals specializing in pediatric care, and psychiatric hospitals providing inpatient mental health treatment.
How do I choose the right hospital?
Consider the hospital's CMS quality rating, available specialties and services, emergency department access, patient safety record, readmission rates, proximity to your home, and whether they accept your insurance plan.
Do all hospitals have emergency rooms?
83% of Medicare-certified hospitals (4,499 facilities) offer emergency services. Critical access hospitals and some specialty hospitals may not have full emergency departments, so it's important to verify before you need care.
What is a Critical Access Hospital?
Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) are small, rural hospitals with 25 or fewer acute care beds that provide essential healthcare services to underserved communities. They receive cost-based reimbursement from Medicare to help maintain access to care in rural areas.
Does Medicare cover hospital stays?
Medicare Part A covers inpatient hospital stays including a semi-private room, meals, nursing care, and medications administered during your stay. You pay a deductible for each benefit period, and after 60 days there are daily copayments. Part B covers outpatient hospital services.
What is the CMS Hospital Compare program?
Hospital Compare is a CMS initiative that publicly reports quality information about Medicare-certified hospitals. It includes data on patient outcomes, patient experience surveys (HCAHPS), timely and effective care, complications, and imaging efficiency, all used to calculate the overall star rating.
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Data source: CMS Hospital Compare ·