CMS Hospital Compare · 5,426 hospitals

How does your hospital really rate?

Star ratings, safety, infections, readmissions, and patient experience for every Medicare-certified hospital in America, straight from CMS Hospital Compare, in plain numbers.

The national picture

Across 5,426 Medicare-certified hospitals, the average CMS overall rating is 3.1 out of 5, but only 288 earn the full five stars.

5,426
hospitals tracked nationwide
3.1 / 5
average CMS star rating (2,866 rated)
288
five-star hospitals - 10% of those rated
56
states & territories covered

CMS star ratings are composite scores built from mortality, safety, readmission, patient experience, and timely & effective care. Not every hospital reports enough volume to receive an overall rating.

Where five-star hospitals cluster

Share of each state's CMS-rated hospitals that earn the top 5-star overall rating

Utah leads the nation
39%
vs 10% of rated hospitals nationwide
Darker states have a higher share of five-star hospitals among those CMS rates
Scale: fewest most 5-star

Source: CMS Hospital Compare, overall hospital rating As of March 2026 States with fewer than 10 rated hospitals are shown without a value to avoid small-sample noise.

How hospital quality is distributed nationwide

The national average is 3.1 of 5, but the 2,866 rated hospitals spread across the full 1–5 star scale

hospitals

What this shows Most hospitals cluster in the 3–4 star middle; only 10% reach five stars and a similar share sit at one star. The headline average hides how few hospitals are truly exceptional.

Source CMS Hospital Compare, overall hospital rating As of March 2026

Browse by State

Data from CMS Hospital Compare and FDA MAUDE. PlainHospital does not recommend hospitals or provide medical advice. About PlainHospital and our data sources

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Research

Original analysis from our editorial team, every statistic derived from our own database. See all research.

About this data

How PlainHospital works, and why you can trust these numbers

What this site is

PlainHospital is a free reference for CMS Hospital Compare quality data across 5,426 Medicare-certified US hospitals: star ratings, quality measures, patient experience scores, and infection rates, alongside FDA MAUDE device adverse-event reports. PlainHospital does not recommend hospitals or provide medical advice.

Editorial process

  1. Source. Pull the latest CMS Hospital Compare quality-measure files and the FDA MAUDE device adverse-event dataset directly from their official government sources.
  2. Verify. Reproduce star ratings, quality-measure scores, infection ratios, and patient-experience percentages exactly as CMS publishes them, without editorial modification or proprietary reweighting.
  3. Publish. Build a per-hospital page linking back to the CMS record so readers can audit our figures against the original source.

Editorial independence & corrections

The PlainHospital editorial team is independent and accepts no payment, sponsorship, or promoted placement from any hospital or health system. Found an error or a stale figure? File a correction via the contact page; we respond within 72 hours and publish corrections with a visible revision note. See our methodology for full source attribution and refresh cadence.

Frequently asked

What data does PlainHospital provide?

PlainHospital provides CMS Hospital Compare data for 5,426 hospitals including star ratings, quality measures, patient experience scores, and infection rates.

What do hospital star ratings mean?

CMS assigns 1-5 star overall ratings based on multiple quality measures including mortality, safety, readmission, patient experience, and timely care.

Where does PlainHospital data come from?

All data comes from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Hospital Compare program, which collects quality data from Medicare-certified hospitals.