My husband insists that we share ownership of the house, even though I paid for it.
Bethany used her inheritance to buy a house, but her husband wanted to be co-owner even though he didn’t contribute any money. When she said no, he asked for past rent payments or hinted at ending their marriage. As a stay-at-home mom, Bethany sought advice, and many people recommended she think about the worth of her unpaid work and get legal help to understand property laws. It’s important to have open communication and seek legal advice to resolve complicated situations like this.
The 160 ‘Best Hospitals,’ according to US News
U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday released its 35th annual “Best Hospitals” rankings and called out 20 hospitals on its national Honor Roll for demonstrating “exceptional breadth and depth of excellence.”
Methodology
For the 2024–2025 list, U.S. News evaluated around 4,500 hospitals and healthcare facilities included in the American Hospital Association‘s Annual Survey of Hospitals.
U.S. News evaluated facilities across 15 specialties. On this year’s list, 160 hospitals were ranked in at least one specialty.
To qualify as one of the top specialty hospitals, hospitals must meet one of the following criteria:
- Be a teaching hospital
- Be affiliated with a medical school
- Have at least 200 staffed beds
- Have at least 100 staffed beds and offer four or more key types of medical technology
U.S. News ranked three of the 15 specialties — ophthalmology, psychiatry, and rheumatology — based on a survey of experts.
For the other 12 specialties, U.S. News determined the rankings based largely on federal and industry data. The 12 data-driven specialties are:
1. Cancer
2. Cardiology & heart surgery
3. Diabetes & endocrinology
4. Ear, nose, & throat
5. Gastroenterology & GI surgery
6. Geriatrics
7. Obstetrics & gynecology
8. Neurology & neurosurgery
9. Orthopedics
10. Pulmonology & lung surgery
11. Rehabilitation
12. Urology
To achieve a rating in a specific specialty, hospitals had to meet a specialty-specific volume/discharge requirement. Or, if a hospital did not meet the volume/discharge requirement, hospitals had to have received nominations from at least 1% of the specialists responding to the reputational surveys over the past three years.
This year, U.S. News added Medicare Advantage data in the rankings’ outcome analysis and outpatient outcomes in more specialty rankings and surgical ratings. It also refined the identification of interhospital transfers and created a single, combined gynecological cancer surgery rating.
According to U.S. News, 2,281 hospitals were eligible for consideration among the 12 data-driven specialties. U.S. News scored eligible facilities based on four factors (note that cardiology & heart surgery, neurology & neurosurgery, obstetrics & gynecology, pulmonology & lung surgery, and rehabilitation had slightly different methodologies, detailed below):
- Outcomes, measured by risk-adjusted mortality and the rate patients are discharged home (45%)
- Structure of hospital resources directly related to patient care (35%)
- Process of delivering patient care/expert opinion (15%)
- Patient experience (5%)
Cardiology, heart & vascular surgery programs, neurology & neurosurgery programs, obstetrics & gynecology programs, and pulmonology & lung surgery programs were also judged on a fifth factor: public transparency.
For these programs, public transparency was weighted at 3% while process/expert opinion was weighted at 12%.
For rehabilitation programs, patient experience and public transparency were not considered. Instead, outcomes were weighted at 30%, structure was weighted at 38%, and process/expert opinion was weighted at 32%.
Honor roll
U.S. News recognized 20 facilities on an “Honor Roll.” According to U.S. News, the facilities on the list demonstrate “exceptional breadth and depth of excellence.” The honor roll awardees listed in alphabetical order include:
- Brigham and Women’s Hospital (Boston, MA)
- Cedars-Sinai Medical Center (Los Angeles, CA)
- Cleveland Clinic (Cleveland, OH)
- Duke University Hospital (Durham, NC)
- Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian (Philadelphia, PA)
- Houston Methodist Hospital (Houston, TX)
- Johns Hopkins Hospital (Baltimore, MD)
- Massachusetts General Hospital (Boston, MA)
- Mayo Clinic-Arizona (Phoenix, AZ)
- Mayo Clinic-Rochester (Rochester, MN)
- Mount Sinai Hospital (New York, NY)
- New York-Presbyterian Hospital-Columbia and Cornell (New York, NY)
- North Shore University Hospital at Northwell Health (Manhasset, NY)
- Northwestern Medicine-Northwestern Memorial Hospital (Chicago, IL)
- NYU Langone Hospitals (New York, NY)
- Rush University Medical Center (Chicago, IL)
- Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital (Palo Alto, CA)UC San Diego Health-La Jolla and Hillcrest Hospitals (San Diego, CA)
- UCLA Medical Center (Los Angeles, CA)
- UCSF Health-UCSF Medical Center (San Francisco, CA)
For the full U.S News & World Report “Best Hospitals” rankings across various specialties, click here.
(U.S. News & World Report 2024-2025 Best Hospitals rankings, 7/16; U.S. News & World Report 2024-2025 Best Hospitals methodology, accessed 7/15; U.S. News & World Report press release, 7/16; Henderson, MedPage Today, 7/16)
