Frequently Asked Questions

Star ratings come directly from the CMS Overall Hospital Quality Star Rating, published quarterly by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. We display them verbatim — we do not adjust, re-weight, or compute our own ratings.

CMS star ratings apply only to acute care hospitals. Children's hospitals, psychiatric facilities, inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRF), long-term acute care (LTACH), and VA hospitals are evaluated under separate quality programs designed for their facility type. We surface the appropriate program data on each specialty profile.

Teaching hospitals (academic medical centers) often receive lower CMS star ratings because they treat more medically complex cases — patients other hospitals transfer in for advanced care. The star rating reflects population mix as much as care quality, which is why every teaching-hospital profile on CareRanks includes a context tooltip.

Hospital prices are negotiated separately with each insurance plan, with Medicare and Medicaid paying federally-set rates. The published "gross charge" is the hospital's list price — almost no one pays this amount. Real cost depends on your insurance, which is why CareRanks shows gross charges, cash-pay prices, and negotiated rate ranges where available.

No. We do not accept payment from hospitals for placement, ratings, or improved rankings. The site is free to consumers and supported by independent revenue sources unrelated to hospital relationships.

Not every hospital publishes a complete or machine-readable price transparency file (MRF). When pricing data is unavailable or incomplete, we say so explicitly rather than guess. Federal law requires hospitals to publish this data — our transparency grade page shows which hospitals comply and which don't.

Quality data is refreshed each calendar quarter as CMS publishes new Hospital Compare releases. Price transparency files are refreshed on a rolling basis as hospitals update their MRFs.

We welcome corrections. Email errors@careranks.com with the hospital name, the field in question, and the source of the correct information. We verify and update on a rolling basis.