How U.S. News selects the ‘Best Hospitals’, and how the process has changed

This is the 35th year that U.S. News & World Report has produced its rankings of America’s top hospitals, and the methodology is continuously refined.

U.S. News released its “Best Hospitals” list of 2024-25 today. (See the full U.S. News rankings here.) And U.S. News made some notable changes in its approach to the rankings this year.

This year, U.S. News added data from Medicare Advantage plans in its analysis. As a result, U.S. News analyzed far more patient records than it did just a year ago, says Min Hee Seo, senior health data scientist at U.S. News & World Report.

“The key change we made this year is that we introduced Medicare Advantage data in evaluating hospital-level outcomes this year,” Seo tells Chief Healthcare Executive®. “So we almost double the size of the data for certain hospitals that provide care for patients with Medicare Advantage insurance. So our outcomes are more rigorous, and the evaluations of hospitals are better, as patient populations are better represented.” (Watch part of our conversation in this video. The story continues below.)

The addition of Medicare Advantage data reflects the growing popularity of those plans, Seo says. More than 30 million Americans are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans.

Hospitals in 11 specialties were evaluated for outcomes among Medicare Advantage participants.

Adding the Medicare Advantage records makes the analysis stronger, she says.

Next year, U.S. News expects to include Medicare Advantage outcomes in its ratings for procedures and conditions.

Even with the addition of the Medicare Advantage data, Seo says the inclusion of far more records didn’t bring more volatility to the ratings, as many of the top performing hospitals again fared well this year.

The U.S. News rankings also include care provided to patients on an outpatient basis. This year, outpatient outcomes were added in the analysis in rankings of “ear, nose & throat” care, prostate cancer surgery and gynecological surgery ratings. Last year, U.S. News incorporated outpatient data in rankings for orthopedics and neurology.

It’s a reflection of the growing number of people seeking care on an outpatient basis, Seo says. U.S. News has also recently released its inaugural ranking of ambulatory surgery centers.

“The refinement we're making each year reflects healthcare landscape changes as well, since a lot of hospitals are also doing procedures in a non-inpatient setting,” she says.

U.S. News examines millions of Medicare patient records from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, and the rankings are increasingly based on objective data, Seo notes. U.S. News examined Medicare data from 2020, 2021 and 2022 in compiling the rankings on hospitals.

So the analysis includes outcomes from the peaks of the COVID-19 pandemic, but also reflects performance in 2022 when cases subsided. U.S. News did not include outcomes for COVID-19 patients in its analysis, since some regions and facilities had higher volumes of COVID patients than others.

All of the U.S. News rankings on conditions and procedures are “data driven,” she says.

“We're leaning towards putting more significance on outcome measures than other subjective data,” she says.

U.S. News relies on some expert opinion in rankings of certain specialties where objective data is lacking. Ben Harder, U.S. News managing editor and chief of health analysis, has said he expects the rankings will eventually move away from subjective data and expert opinion, but it may take a while.

Looking to the future, Seo is looking forward to incorporating more analysis of health equity. U.S. News recently named the top hospitals in providing equitable care, and she says there’s more potential to look at how hospitals are faring when it comes to treating the most vulnerable.

“I'd like to analyze more equity measures, how hospitals are providing care for these vulnerable populations in different perspectives,” she says. “Right now, this year, we are focusing on access domain of equitable health. But there are many other things we need to examine with the data. So that's something we’re very excited to do in future years.”

Seo says she’s anxious to hear the reactions from the public to this year’s analysis.

“I am excited to hear any feedback from consumers after the launch,” she says.