The latest federal hospital care survey data shows Floridians were none too pleased with the experience — rating patient satisfaction lower than any other state.
The “one-star” average patient rating was particularly pronounced for the Palm Beach Health Network, which had three of its seven facilities represented at the lowest-rated level. The network is owned by Dallas-basedTenet Healthcare, a publicly traded health services company with 50 hospitals in eight states.
Overall, the latest average rating the federal government garnered from patient satisfaction data collected from 166 hospitals in the Sunshine State in 2024-25 show Florida hospitals earned 2.71 stars out of five.
Not one Florida hospital earned patient satisfaction scores averaging
five stars, according to an analysis of publicly available Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services data by iFax, a platform which provides cloud-based faxing for businesses and professionals worldwide.
What were the worst-rated hospitals according to patients?
Eight Florida hospitals averaged a one-star patient rating, the analysis found. They were:
∎ Delray Medical Center, Delray Beach, with 1,728 completed surveys.
∎ Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, with 1,065 completed surveys.
∎ West Boca Medical Center, Boca Raton, with 646 completed surveys.
∎ Tampa General Hospital Brooksville, with 869 completed surveys.
∎ HCA Florida Lake Monroe Hospital, Sanford, with 665 completed surveys.
∎ HCA Florida Northwest Hospital, Margate, with 641 completed surveys.
∎ HCA Florida Fawcett Hospital, Port Charlotte, with 591 completed surveys.
∎ North Shore Medical Center, Miami, with 450 completed surveys.
The USA Today Network-Florida contacted all eight hospitals for comment on the analysis. The only one to respond was HCA spokesman Louis Lochte, who spoke on behalf of the HCA facility in Margate. He said that HCA Florida Northwest Hospital is “listening closely” to patient feedback.
“We … use it to continually improve the experience of every patient and family so it reflects the care we strive to provide,” he wrote in an email that also noted the hospital has won accolades for three years in a row for its clinical quality, according to Healthgrades, which also bases its ratings on federal, CMS data.
HCA, which runs 190 hospitals nationally, 50 in Florida, also had three of their Florida facilities in Margate, Port Charlotte and Sanford drawing one-star averages for the patient rating.
How are the hospital ratings calculated?
The CMS data that iFax crunched, known as Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS), asks randomly selected patients after their discharge to answer 32 questions about their experience ranging from communication with nurses and doctors to the restfulness of the hospital setting. The analysis comes from the most recent survey, collected between July 2024 to June 2025.
Delray Medical Center, which had 15% of its surveys returned, drawing the most surveys among the one-star averaging hospitals, got the lowest marks, for example, for the percentage of “patients who reported that the areas around their room was ‘always’ quiet at night."
What are the best-rated Florida hospitals according to patients?
The hospitals among the 10 best-rated in Florida were concentrated on the western side of the state. They are:
∎ St. Joseph’s Hospital, Tampa, with 5,938 completed surveys.
∎ Morton Plant Hospital, Clearwater, with 4,477 completed surveys.
∎ Sarasota Memorial Hospital − Venice, with 2,390 surveys completed.
∎ St Anthony's Hospital, St. Petersburg, with 2,335 surveys completed.
∎ AdventHealth Wesley Chapel, with 1,835 surveys compled.
∎ AdventHealth Fish Memorial, Orange City, with 1,770 surveys completed.
∎ AdventHealth Zephyrhills, with 1,655 surveys completed.
∎ Mayo Clinic, Jacksonville, with 1,510 surveys completed.
∎ AdventHealth Palm Coast, with 1,469 surveys completed.
Three hospitals on the “best-rated” list are also located in special hospital taxing districts, which have the power to levy property taxes to help pay for the hospitals’ indigent care.
Sarasota Memorial Hospital — Venice is one of these, located in the Sarasota County Public Hospital District.
That facility, for which 35% of the surveys were returned, was most highly rated for the percentage of “patients who reported that their nurses ‘always’ communicated well,” according to CMS ratings.
Anne Geggis is statewide reporter for the USA TODAY NETWORK FLORIDA, reporting on health and senior issues. If you have news tips, please send them to ageggis@usatodayco.com. You can get all of Florida’s best content directly in your inbox each weekday by signing up for the free newsletter, Florida TODAY, at https://palmbeachpost.com/newsletters.
This article originally appeared on Palm Beach Post: Three Palm Beach County hospitals ranked lowest in nation by patients
