Hospital CEO pay draws scrutiny as patients carry medical debt
Tenet Healthcare’s CEO received $43.1 million in 2025, according to SEC filings, as lawmakers and nurses question hospital costs and staffing.
By Daniel Okafor · Business Editor
3 min read
Hospital executive pay is facing renewed scrutiny as U.S. patients carry $220 billion in medical debt and health costs keep climbing. Tenet Healthcare CEO Saum Sutaria received $43,108,969 in total compensation in 2025, according to federal SEC filings cited by Healthcare Brew.
The figures have landed amid broader anger over the cost of care. The Peterson-KFF Health System Tracker estimates Americans owe $220 billion in medical debt, and a Business Group on Health survey found health care costs are expected to rise 9% this year.
Congress has also pressed hospital leaders on spending. The House Ways and Means Committee held an April hearing focused on hospital CEOs, rising costs and industry consolidation, according to Healthcare Brew.
Hospital executives at the hearing pointed to rising premiums and said consolidation could help address pressures, according to Healthcare Brew. Nurses challenged that view, saying executive pay is growing while staffing and patients’ finances remain strained.
“It is simply outrageous and immoral that healthcare CEOs take home multimillion-dollar compensation packages as we workers and patients witness skyrocketing healthcare costs and face chronic short-staffing that undermines patient care in our hospitals,” Karena Jimenez Pulido, chief nurse representative with National Nurses United at HCA Florida Largo Hospital, told Healthcare Brew by email.
Top hospital CEO compensation
For-profit hospital systems reported some of the largest CEO pay packages in 2025, according to SEC documents cited by Healthcare Brew. Sutaria’s compensation at Tenet was followed by HCA Healthcare CEO Sam Hazen at $26,456,606.
Universal Health Services President and CEO Marc Miller received $16,148,937, according to those filings. Community Health Systems CEO Kevin Hammons, who became permanent CEO on Oct. 1, 2025, received $4,772,869.
Some large nonprofit systems also reported eight-figure CEO compensation in 2024, the most recent year available in Form 990 filings cited by Healthcare Brew. Advocate Health CEO Gene Woods received $25,781,275, Kaiser Permanente CEO Gregory Adams received $12,976,050, and Ascension CEO Joseph Impicciche received $12,281,151.
Pay for many non-executive health care workers was far lower. The Bureau of Labor Statistics reported a 2024 median annual salary of $93,600 for registered nurses and median pay of $239,200 for physicians and surgeons.
During the House hearing, Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith described an industry in which each group points to another for high costs. “Hospitals blame insurers and drug companies. Democrats blame Republicans. Republicans blame Democrats. Insurers blame hospitals and drug companies. Drug companies blame pharmacy benefit managers and hospitals,” Smith said, according to Healthcare Brew.
Hazen, the HCA Healthcare CEO, told the committee in testimony that health care is “too expensive for too many people.” He said prescription prices, insurance premiums and unexpected emergency room bills create financial pressure for American households and require urgent attention across the industry.
Healthcare Brew reported that the other for-profit hospital companies did not respond to requests for comment before publication.
Pay cap efforts have stalled
Some state-level efforts have sought to limit health care executive pay, but Healthcare Brew reported that they have not advanced into law. Vermont considered a proposal that would have capped hospital executive and clinical leadership pay at 10 times the salaries of the lowest-paid patient-facing employees, but the bill did not move forward.
North Carolina and California are considering similar measures, according to reports cited by Healthcare Brew. In Minnesota, the Minnesota Nurses Association pushed a 2024 agenda aimed at hospital executive pay, but the Minnesota Reformer reported that it did not gain ground in the Legislature.
“Hospital executives think they run the show. They have the money to pay more than 60 lobbyists to ensure the system stays exactly like it is. But we are here today to speak with one voice and demand change,” Chris Rubesch, a registered nurse at Essentia-Duluth and president of the Minnesota Nurses Association, said in a 2024 union release.
This story draws on original reporting from Fortune.