Healthcare Insights

Top teaching hospitals by net patient revenue

One reason why the healthcare industry is such an incredible place to work is that it’s constantly on the cutting edge of change. Medical devices or treatments enter the market and make it possible for patients to recover quickly and return to their lives faster. New technology and techniques are taught that help physicians perform life-saving procedures more safely and efficiently than ever before.  

None of this innovation would be possible without teaching hospitals. Thanks to teaching hospitals, both physicians and medical students learn about these innovations and get to practice with them in a real clinical setting. Teaching hospitals not only provide education and training for future physicians but also offer essential Continuing Medical Education (CME) programs, which help active professionals develop their careers.  

Below, we have a list of the top teaching hospitals in the U.S. ranked by their net patient revenue (NPR). 

Top 20 teaching hospitals by net patient revenue

Hospital name Definitive ID Net patient revenue Total patient revenue # of discharges Explore dataset
Tisch Hospital 2843 $6,273,707,636  $34,521,586,839  89,174 Explore
NewYork-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center 541974 $5,734,047,089  $20,326,788,428  102,654 Explore
Cleveland Clinic Main Campus 3120 $5,241,664,591  $16,959,307,334  48,583 Explore
Vanderbilt University Medical Center 3742 $4,691,813,631  $16,125,600,496  60,138 Explore
UCSF Helen Diller Medical Center at Parnassus Heights 560 $4,606,030,749  $18,005,576,431  33,309 Explore
Stanford Hospital 588 $4,183,895,185  $24,973,914,387  28,661 Explore
University Hospital 2096 $4,028,211,053  $10,954,651,568  45,343 Explore
University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center 4017 $3,982,982,020  $8,772,955,412  26,908 Explore
Cedars-Sinai Medical Center 430 $3,550,379,003  $21,200,081,130  50,098 Explore
Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center 2846 $3,417,060,157  $8,955,837,339  22,803 Explore
Massachusetts General Hospital 1973 $3,376,488,407  $11,200,803,905  46,219 Explore
Yale New Haven Hospital 731 $3,238,519,875  $10,885,895,300  58,034 Explore
Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania 3571 $2,851,500,619  $15,378,915,176  37,697 Explore
Mayo Clinic Hospital - Saint Marys Campus 2191 $2,837,714,279  $5,748,618,815  48,836 Explore
Brigham and Womens Hospital 1969 $2,707,497,042  $8,622,860,042  40,825 Explore
Strong Memorial Hospital 2818 $2,702,464,192  $6,054,880,853  37,802 Explore
University of California Davis Medical Center (AKA UC Davis Medical Center) 515 $2,683,028,902  $10,672,719,489  26,137 Explore
Duke University Hospital 2973 $2,675,540,231  $8,996,018,758  40,906 Explore
Atrium Health Carolinas Medical Center 3003 $2,485,398,176  $9,085,603,529  56,935 Explore
UC San Diego Medical Center 550 $2,476,193,001  $8,386,468,663  34,103 Explore

Fig 1. Data from Definitive Healthcare’s HospitalView database. Data is from October 2021 Medicare Cost Report release. Data accessed May 2022.   

Which teaching hospital has the highest net patient revenue? 

Tisch Hospital, located in New York City, ranks at the top of the list with net patient revenue of $6,273,707,636. It’s closely followed by New York-Presbyterian/Weill Cornell Medical Center and Cleveland Clinic Main Campus, located in New York and Ohio respectively. These teaching hospitals each have an NPR of over $5 billion.  

These results are relatively unsurprising, as nearly all these teaching hospitals are located within or near major cities. Many teaching hospitals on the list also reside in high-population states such as New York, Texas, Illinois, California and others.  

What is a teaching hospital? 

According to the AHA, teaching hospitals “fulfill critical social missions.” These missions include teaching and training the next generation of healthcare professionals, conducting research, providing specialized clinical care to severely ill and injured patients and more.  

By partnering with medical and nursing schools and other local educational institutions and research centers, the top teaching hospitals are often at the forefront of medical innovation.  

What’s the difference between a general hospital and a teaching hospital? 

The major difference between a teaching hospital and a nonteaching hospital is that of capability. To generalize, teaching hospitals may be able to provide more specialized, higher-quality care to patients than nonteaching hospitals.  

Teaching hospitals tend to be staffed by highly qualified physicians and medical specialists in order to facilitate the research, education and training that teaching hospitals are known for. This usually means that a teaching hospital has access to cutting-edge technology and subspecialists in unique fields not available anywhere else.  

This isn’t to say that the quality of care at a nonteaching hospital is inferior. For most illnesses and injuries, a “regular” hospital will take excellent care of its patients. For rare, unique or highly complicated conditions, however, a teaching hospital is often more equipped to provide the necessary care.  

What is net patient revenue? 

Net patient revenue is the dollar amount received for all patient care performed in a hospital or health system. It’s calculated as the difference between gross patient revenue and other charges such as contractual adjustments, charity care, foundation earnings, bad debt, and more.   

Growing net patient revenue is often considered to be one of the most difficult challenges for hospitals nationwide. Between fluctuating patient volumes and decreasing reimbursement rates, improving financial performance is top-of-mind for many healthcare providers’ strategists. Healthcare commercial intelligence can help hospitals optimize revenue growth with comprehensive insights into payor claims data, patient leakage, diagnosis and procedure trends and more.   

Learn more  

Healthcare Insights are developed with healthcare commercial intelligence from the Definitive Healthcare platform. Want even more insights? Start a free trial now and get access to the latest healthcare commercial intelligence on hospitals, physicians and other healthcare providers.