A health network in Florida has won a victory in its fight against the hospital safety ratings issued by the Leapfrog Group, claiming that the organization was punishing its hospitals for refusing to cooperate with the group.
On Friday, March 6, 2026, a federal judge ordered Leapfrog to take down its safety ratings for five hospitals that are part of the Palm Beach Health Network. The hospitals, which are owned by Tenet Healthcare, claimed that Leapfrog retaliated against them for not providing survey data by issuing bad patient safety scores.
At issue is a change Leapfrog made to its methodology in 2024, which a federal judge said assigns “arbitrarily low scores for several measures” when hospitals don’t provide data. The Palm Beach Network hospitals argued this move “deliberately” defamed hospitals that chose to not participate in Leapfrog surveys.
The hospitals, claiming that Leapfrog’s poor safety grades—they received a “D” or an “F”—hurt their reputation, asked Leapfrog to take the grades down, but the group refused. The judge ordered Leapfrog to take down several years of safety ratings for the five hospitals, ruling that Leapfrog’s new methodology “unfairly penalizes non-participating hospitals and misrepresents hospital safety.” The judge also ruled that when Leapfrog positions its safety grades for hospitals as an accurate representation of patient safety, it is being “deceptive.”
For years, hospitals have protested that Leapfrog punishes hospitals that don’t participate in its surveys. In this latest case, the Florida hospitals complained that the group’s methodology assigned “arbitrarily low scores for several measures” and changed the weighing on those measures for nonparticipating hospitals,
A statement from Tenet health care, which owns the Florida hospitals, said: “Leapfrog aggressively pushes hospitals to pay for its consulting services and promotional licenses in exchange for better grades. Those who decline to participate are punished with artificially low ratings.”
A statement from Leapfrog said that the organization will appeal the verdict, but it plans to move forward with its 2026 ratings. It will not, however, report ratings on hospitals using the methodology it used to calculate safety grades for the Florida hospitals.
The Leapfrog statement also claimed the case presented first amendment issues. “We cannot accept the decision’s main conclusion, that Florida citizens—and all Americans—don’t have a right to hear Leapfrog’s expert perspective on how well these five for-profit Tenet-owned hospitals care for patients.”
