Hospital supply
How many hospitals, and where?
The 5,359 reporting hospitals are unevenly spread. Texas, California, and Florida hold the most. The ownership mix and bed capacity vary sharply by state, which shapes who can actually reach care.
The problem
Hospital supply is not a national count problem. It is a distribution, ownership, and resilience problem. A state can have many hospitals while rural areas remain dependent on one facility, and ownership mix can shape service availability, reinvestment incentives, and the risk profile of future consolidation or closure.
The recommendation
Manage hospital supply as market infrastructure. The recommended approach is to evaluate geography, ownership, service availability, and single-provider dependence together before making access, CON, merger, or rural-stabilization decisions.
Reporting hospitals by state
Count of Care Compare hospitals in each state.
Read it this way Raw counts track population and land area more than access: Texas leads partly because it is Texas. Use this as the denominator context for the ownership mix beside it, not as an access verdict. Beds per person and drive time are the access measures. Use this chart to see whether supply risk comes from geography, ownership, or concentration, and why the recommendation treats hospital count as only the starting denominator.
⊞ data table⬇ CSV
| State | reporting hospitals |
|---|---|
| TX | 465 |
| CA | 378 |
| FL | 222 |
| OH | 196 |
| IL | 194 |
| NY | 190 |
| PA | 188 |
| LA | 161 |
| IN | 150 |
| GA | 148 |
| MI | 148 |
| WI | 142 |
| KS | 138 |
| MN | 136 |
| OK | 135 |
| TN | 122 |
| MO | 121 |
| NC | 120 |
| IA | 118 |
| AZ | 106 |
| MS | 106 |
| AL | 102 |
| KY | 102 |
| WA | 100 |
| CO | 97 |
| VA | 95 |
| NE | 93 |
| AR | 90 |
| MA | 84 |
| NJ | 79 |
| SC | 66 |
| MT | 63 |
| OR | 62 |
| SD | 61 |
| MD | 56 |
| WV | 55 |
| UT | 51 |
| ID | 48 |
| ND | 47 |
| NV | 46 |
| NM | 45 |
| CT | 37 |
| ME | 36 |
| WY | 30 |
| NH | 28 |
| AK | 25 |
| HI | 24 |
| VT | 17 |
| DE | 13 |
| RI | 13 |
| DC | 10 |
CMS Provider Data Catalog · Hospital Care Compare · 2026-05-13 · source
Who owns the hospitals
Facility count by ownership category.
Read it this way Use this chart to see whether supply risk comes from geography, ownership, or concentration, and why the recommendation treats hospital count as only the starting denominator.
⊞ data table⬇ CSV
| Ownership | Hospitals |
|---|---|
| Non-Profit | 2905 |
| Government | 1160 |
| For-Profit | 1040 |
| Veterans Health Administration | 131 |
| Physician Owned | 76 |
| Department of Defense | 32 |
| Tribal | 15 |
CMS Provider Data Catalog · Hospital Care Compare · 2026-05-13 · source
Why this matters
Raw counts flatter big states and hide thin coverage: a state can rank high on facilities and still leave whole regions an hour from care. Ownership matters because it correlates with which service lines stay open and which close under financial pressure, so two states with equal counts can offer very different real access.
Recommended actions
- Compare states on the map against their population before drawing any access conclusion from a count.
- Watch the ownership mix beside the count: shifts toward any single ownership class change which services survive downturns.
- Pair this page with the rural-closures dashboard under Sustainability before concluding supply is adequate anywhere rural.
- Monitor beds per capita and drive-time measures, not facility counts, as the access KPIs.
The recommendation
Therefore, manage hospital supply as market infrastructure. The recommended approach is to evaluate geography, ownership, service availability, and single-provider dependence together before making access, CON, merger, or rural-stabilization decisions.
Demographic slice none. Facility counts are the CMS reporting universe of acute-care hospitals, and they undercount specialty and federal facilities outside Care Compare.
Sources
- CMS Provider Data Catalog · Hospital Care Compare · 2026-05-13