★★★☆☆3 Stars Hospitals

A 3-star CMS rating places 3 Stars hospitals near the national median on CMS Hospital Compare's composite quality measures. The 3-star band is the largest, capturing the broad middle of US hospitals.

CMS publishes the underlying domain measures alongside the star rating on the Care Compare site so patients and clinicians can see which specific dimensions drive the headline number. For a planned admission, drilling into the procedure-specific complication, readmission, and mortality measures usually tells a more useful story than the composite alone.

Average payments in the 3 stars cohort prices out close to the national Medicare baseline, within roughly 3% of the national average. That puts it in the broad middle band of US hospital reimbursement — typical of community and regional facilities away from the most expensive metros.

Star ratings are intentionally independent of price. The CMS composite measures clinical and patient-experience outcomes, not cost. That decoupling is why we publish a separate Value Score — combining Medicare payment data with CMS quality measures — so patients can see how price and quality interact within a cohort. 935 hospitals fall under 3 Stars hospitals, a sample large enough that aggregate statistics are stable and broadly representative of the segment.

Under the HospitalCostData Value Score, this cohort breaks down as 0 A, 282 B, 596 C, 55 D, and 2 F. Higher star ratings are not automatic A grades — payment levels also factor into the composite. The Value Score is editorial and informational, never a clinical recommendation. For care decisions, refer to your physician and the underlying AHRQ-derived quality indicators on Care Compare.