Becker’s has tracked nine hospital and emergency department closures in 2026, as of Nov. 11. Three of them were added the week of Nov. 9.
That’s still well below the 23 closures Becker’s tracked in 2025, but the late-year uptick shows mounting pressure on hospitals across the U.S.
The latest closures come from varied causes. Sea Pines Rehabilitation Hospital in Melbourne, Fla., closed indefinitely Nov. 6 after flood damage.
In Pennsylvania, Sharon (Pa.) Regional Medical Center’s license was revoked, effective Nov. 17, by the state’s Department of Health after its electricity provider moved to cut power over an unpaid bill. The order came the same day Sharon Regional said it would suspend all hospital services as part of its restructuring. The hospital missed two pay cycles in October and paused inpatient care Oct. 29, while its emergency department initially remained open.
Nashville, Tenn.-based HCA Healthcare said Nov. 11 that it will end inpatient care at its HCA Florida Pasadena Hospital in St. Petersburg by the end of 2026. The 307-bed hospital said the decision comes after a review of changing community healthcare needs and lasting effects from recent hurricanes.
Earlier in the year, financial strain drove most closures. When Sturgis (Mich.) Hospital closed in June after 101 years, it cited declining reimbursement, rising operating costs and lower patient use.
Becker’s connected with three leaders from national hospital associations to discuss what’s driving the recent uptick and which hospitals and communities are most at risk heading into 2027.
Question: What’s driving the recent uptick in closures? Which hospitals or communities are most at risk heading into 2027?
Beth Feldpush, Senior Vice President of Advocacy and Policy, America’s Essential Hospitals: Essential hospitals across the nation are facing unprecedented challenges due to looming Medicaid and 340B cuts. Just last week, for example, CMS finalized draconian 340B cuts for essential hospitals while at the same time increasing payments to for-profit hospitals. This is not a tenable situation.
The continued cuts will devastate essential hospitals’ ability to provide high quality care to the patients and communities they serve, and Congress needs to act immediately to put a stop to them.
Brock Slabach, COO, National Rural Health Association: Rural hospitals aren’t suddenly becoming inefficient. We’re seeing the accumulated effect of a payment and delivery system that asks rural hospitals to maintain essential, round-the-clock capacity without consistently paying enough to sustain that capacity. Rural hospital closures are not being driven by a single factor. They reflect years of financial pressure from low patient volumes, inadequate reimbursement, rising workforce and operating costs, and increasingly thin financial reserves. More than 40% of rural hospitals are already operating at a loss, and 417 are considered vulnerable to closure according to the Chartis Center for Rural Health.
Heading into 2027, we are particularly concerned about small, isolated hospitals that are already losing money on patient care and lack the financial reserves to withstand another shock such as the implementation of HR 1 Medicaid cuts. And closure is only part of the story. Communities often lose obstetrics, surgery, chemotherapy or inpatient care long before the hospital itself closes. For NRHA, the real issue is the continued erosion of access to essential health care in rural America.
Aaron Wesolowski, Vice President of Policy, American Hospital Association: Reductions to Medicaid, rising numbers of uninsured patients, higher levels of uncompensated care, and other negative impacts from OBBBA, including changes affecting state-directed payments and provider taxes, are adding further financial pressure and operational challenges for hospitals and health systems.
All hospitals and communities face a threat, but hospitals that treat a higher number of uninsured patients and those on Medicaid and Medicare are especially vulnerable as these programs typically reimburse hospitals less than the cost of providing care to begin with.
