Five Florida hospitals sue Leapfrog, claiming unfair and misleading safety grades.
Five hospitals in South Florida have taken a national hospital safety group to court, saying the grades they received are not only unfair but also harmful to patients and the community. The lawsuit was filed in West Palm Beach by five Tenet Healthcare-owned facilities: Good Samaritan Medical Center, Delray Medical Center, Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center, West Boca Medical Center, and St. Mary’s Medical Center. These hospitals say The Leapfrog Group, which issues hospital safety grades across the country, is pushing a system that puts pressure on hospitals to pay or risk being labeled unsafe—regardless of their actual performance.
According to the suit, Leapfrog gave these hospitals some of the lowest possible scores—D’s and F’s—even though, they claim, their patient care has remained strong and has been recognized by other organizations. The hospitals accuse Leapfrog of changing how it evaluates safety just to punish them for not sending in certain survey data. They say Leapfrog is twisting the numbers and hiding the fact that some of the hospitals it gives top marks to are the same ones that pay to advertise their grades or sponsor Leapfrog’s events.
The core issue in the lawsuit is that Leapfrog assigns letter grades that appear simple and trustworthy to the public, but behind the scenes, the process is more complicated. Leapfrog uses both public data and self-reported surveys to calculate its grades. But the hospitals argue that if they choose not to fill out Leapfrog’s survey—something they’re not legally required to do—they get slapped with poor scores that don’t reflect the actual care they provide. They say this tactic is unfair and hurts their reputation in the community.
The suit also claims that Leapfrog’s practices steer patients away from reliable hospitals and into facilities that may actually be less safe, just because they happen to participate in Leapfrog’s process. The South Florida hospitals want Leapfrog to stop grading them altogether and remove the failing grades from the most recent reports. They’re also asking for damages of over $75,000 and a ruling that Leapfrog broke state laws by using misleading and deceptive methods.
Leapfrog has fired back. The organization’s president, Leah Binder, said the hospitals should not try to hide safety information from the public. She argued that patients deserve to know if their local hospital has issues with infections, injuries, or other preventable problems. Leapfrog believes its grading system helps people make better choices about where to go for care. Binder also dismissed the lawsuit as another attempt to avoid fixing real problems inside these hospitals.
The tension goes back years. The south Florida hospitals stopped filling out Leapfrog’s surveys during the pandemic, saying they needed to focus on other areas of patient care and didn’t have the time or staff to respond to Leapfrog’s requests. Leapfrog, in turn, continued grading them based on public data and gave them low scores.
Now, the hospitals argue those grades are not only unfair but misleading. They say they’ve continued to meet important medical standards and that their staff work hard to protect patients every day. They see the grades as a punishment for not participating in Leapfrog’s voluntary surveys and believe the nonprofit has too much power over public opinion.
This fight highlights the growing tension between hospitals and rating groups. On one side, groups like Leapfrog say they help the public stay informed. On the other, hospitals say the system isn’t always honest and can hurt those doing good work. The courts will decide whether Leapfrog crossed a legal line, but for now, the public is left with the same grades—and the same questions—about where it’s truly safe to get care.
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Florida hospitals sue Leapfrog Group over patient safety grades
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