Hospital Ownership

Washington State has 97 community general hospitals. Community hospitals are licensed as such by the Washington State Department of health. Washington State also has 13 other hospitals, which include:

  • 3 private specialized service hospitals
  • 2 state-owned psychiatric hospitals
  • 4 U.S. military hospitals, and
  • 4 U.S. Veteran's affairs hospitals

Almost all inpatient beds are in public or not-for-profit hospitals. This type of ownership accounts for 91 percent of all community hospital beds.

Pie chart showing hospital beds by ownership

Almost half of Washington hospitals are government ownerd. Public hospital districts, are government entitites with publicly elected boards.

Pie chart showing hospital ownership

Nine hospitals are for-profit:

  • Auburn Regional  Medical Center (Auburn)
  • Capital Medical Center (Olympia)
  • Deaconess Medical Center (Spokane)
  • Fairfax Hospital (Kirkland)
  • Kindred Hospital (Seattle)
  • Toppenish Community Hospital (Toppenish)
  • Valley Hospital & Medical Center (Spokane)
  • Wenatchee Valley Hospital (Wenatchee)
  • Yakima Regional Medical and Cardiac Center (Yakima)

45 of Washington's hospital as designated as rural facilities. Most of the rural hospitals in Washington State are Critical Access Hospitals with 25 or fewer beds.

32 CAHs are public district hospitals, and 6 are private nonprofit hospitals.

Pie chart showing rural designation

“Urban” and “Rural” definitions used here are from the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and are often referred to as the “Medicare definitions” of urban and rural hospitals.  For Critical Access Hospitals, the restructuring of services, and the higher rates of Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement, are gradually improving the financial viability of many of these small, mostly rural, hospitals. For more information on Critical Access programs, go to the state Department of Health website:  http://www.doh.wa.gov/hsqa/ocrh/CAH/cah399.html