Universal Health Services Inc. (UHS)

Universal Health Services owns and operates, through subsidiaries, acute care hospitals, outpatient facilities and behavioral health care facilities. As of 25 February 2026 it owned or operated 375 inpatient facilities and 168 outpatient and other facilities in 40 states, Washington, D.C., the United Kingdom and Puerto Rico. It is a Delaware corporation organised in 1979 and based in King of Prussia, Pennsylvania.

The two divisions

The acute care side in the United States is 29 inpatient acute care hospitals, 35 free-standing emergency departments, 13 outpatient centres and one surgical hospital. The behavioral health side is much larger by facility count: 182 inpatient and 110 outpatient facilities in the United States, and 161 inpatient and seven outpatient facilities in the United Kingdom. The company changed the way it counts outpatient behavioral health facilities in the third quarter of 2025, and says substantially all of the increase from prior periods comes from that change. Acute care hospitals, outpatient facilities and the company's commercial health insurer were approximately 57% of consolidated net revenues in each of 2025 and 2024, and behavioral health care facilities with the insurer approximately 43%.

What the hospitals do

Services include general and specialty surgery, internal medicine, obstetrics, emergency room care, radiology, oncology, diagnostic care, coronary care, paediatric services, pharmacy services and behavioral health services. The parent supplies capital and a set of management services to the facilities: central purchasing, information services, finance and control systems, facilities planning, physician recruitment, administrative personnel management, marketing and public relations. Each hospital is run day to day by a chief executive employed by a subsidiary, with a Board of Governors including members of the hospital's medical staff overseeing medical, professional and ethical practice.

The United Kingdom

Behavioral health facilities in the United Kingdom are a substantial part of the group. They brought in approximately $1.001 billion in 2025 against $880 million in 2024, and held total assets of approximately $1.531 billion at 31 December 2025 against $1.358 billion a year earlier.

Strategy and the market

The company states that it believes community-based hospitals will remain the focal point of the healthcare delivery network, and it follows a philosophy of self-determination for itself and its hospitals. It selectively acquires, builds or leases additional hospitals and also considers divesting facilities. Pressure to contain costs, and technology that allows more procedures to be done without an overnight stay, have pushed payers toward ambulatory and outpatient care, and the company is responding by expanding outpatient services and by working on staffing levels, equipment use, patient management and billing and collection. Acute care volumes are typically seasonal, with higher patient volumes in the first and fourth quarters.

Who pays

Payments come from private insurers including managed care plans, the federal government under Medicare, state governments under their Medicaid programmes and directly from patients. The industry is subject to government healthcare participation requirements, licensure and accreditation rules, reimbursement rules, health information privacy and security rules, and Medicare and Medicaid fraud and abuse provisions, including prohibitions on kickbacks, false claims and physician self-referral, with exclusion from government programmes, fines and repayment among the possible consequences of a violation.

People

There were approximately 101,500 employees at 31 December 2025: approximately 88,100 in the United States, of whom approximately 65,000 were full-time, and approximately 13,400 in the United Kingdom. Hospitals are staffed by licensed physicians admitted to the medical staff of the individual hospital, many of whom also hold privileges elsewhere. Approximately 460 physicians are employed within the acute care division and approximately 445 within the behavioral health division, directly or through contracts with affiliated group practices. Approximately 1,070 employees at three hospitals are unionised.

From Universal Health Services' annual report on Form 10-K for the year ended 31 December 2025. The filing