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Forbes on Thursday released its first-ever list of the top hospitals in the United States, rating 762 hospitals on 56 measures.
Methodology
To develop their methodology for the list, Forbes partnered with Inovalon, a healthcare data and analytics firm, as well as nationally recognized measurement experts, physicians, statisticians, health policy researchers, and patient advocates.
For the list, Forbes leveraged 56 measures from CMS' Provider Data Catalog (PDC) in four main categories:
- Outcomes (consisting of 25 measures, weighted at 55%)
- Best practices (consisting of 10 measures, weighted at 20%)
- Value (consisting of seven measures, weighted at 15%)
- Patient experience (consisting of 14 measures, weighted at 10%)
Outcome measures were adjusted for social drivers of health among the population living near the hospital based on each measure's statistical relationship with those drivers. Outcomes measures were also adjusted based on how each hospital performed in specific measures compared to the national average.
Each hospital was assigned a score of one to five stars in each category, representing the following percentiles:
- One star: 1st to 10th percentile
- Two stars: 11th to 30th percentile
- Three stars: 31st to 70th percentile
- Four stars: 71st to 90th percentile
- Five stars: 91st to 100th percentile
Percentiles within each peer group were then calculated and used to calculate overall quality ratings for each hospital between one and five stars.
Forbes started with around 5,400 general acute care hospitals that are listed in the CMS PDC and currently operating in the United States. From there, around 2,500 hospitals met Forbes's inclusion criteria, which only considered hospitals that publicly reported minimum thresholds of the 56 quality measures in Forbes's methodology.
Children's hospitals and psychiatric hospitals were excluded from the list. In addition, most specialty hospitals and all Department of Veterans Affairs hospitals did not meet the minimum thresholds set for the 56 quality measures.
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Details on the list
According to Forbes, 253 hospitals earned an overall rating of five stars while 509 hospitals earned an overall rating of four stars.
In addition, when broken down by hospital size, Forbes found:
- Out of 754 small hospitals evaluated, 151 earned four stars and 75 earned five stars
- Out of 961 medium hospitals evaluated, 192 earned four stars and 96 earned five stars
- Out of 579 large hospitals evaluated, 116 earned four stars and 57 earned five stars
- Out of 250 very large hospitals evaluated, 50 earned four stars and 25 earned five stars
To see the full list of all 762 top hospitals earning four or five stars, click here.
(Peachman, Forbes, 12/4; Peachman, Forbes Top Hospitals 2026 Methodology, 12/4; Peachman, Forbes Top Hospitals list, 12/4)
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