For-profit hospitals, or alternatively investor-owned hospitals, are investor

Investor

An investor is a party that makes an investment into one or more categories of assets --- equity, debt securities, real estate, currency, commodity, derivatives such as put and call options, etc...

-owned chains of hospital

Hospital

A hospital is a health care institution providing patient treatment by specialized staff and equipment. Hospitals often, but not always, provide for inpatient care or longer-term patient stays....

s which have been established particularly in the United States

United States

The United States of America is a federal constitutional republic comprising fifty states and a federal district...

 during the late twentieth century. In contrast to the traditional and more common non-profit hospital

Non-profit hospital

A non-profit hospital, or not-for-profit hospital, is a hospital which is organized as a non-profit corporation. Based on their charitable purpose and most often affiliated with a religious denomination they are a traditional means of delivering medical care in the United States...

s, they attempt to garner a profit for their shareholders.

In the United States. the three largest such firms are Hospital Corporation of America

Hospital Corporation of America

Hospital Corporation of America is the largest private operator of health care facilities in the world, It is based in Nashville, Tennessee and is widely considered to be the single largest factor in making that city a hotspot for healthcare enterprise.-History:The founders of HCA include Jack C....

, Tenet

Tenet

A tenet is one of the principles on which a belief or theory is based. Tenet may also refer to:* Tenet , a Canadian heavy metal band* Tenet Healthcare, a hospital holding company* Tenet people, an ethnic group in Sudan...

 (formerly NME

NME

The New Musical Express is a popular music publication in the United Kingdom, published weekly since March 1952. It started as a music newspaper, and gradually moved toward a magazine format during the 1980s, changing from newsprint in 1998. It was the first British paper to include a singles...

), and HealthSouth

HealthSouth

HealthSouth Corporation , based in Birmingham, Alabama, is the nation’s largest owner and operator of inpatient rehabilitative hospitals. Operating in 26 states across the country and in Puerto Rico, HealthSouth serves patients through its network of inpatient rehabilitation hospitals , outpatient...

. HealthSouth, as the third-largest U.S. national chain, is also the leading provider of rehabilitation services. For profit Psychiatric Solutions

Psychiatric Solutions

Psychiatric Solutions, Inc. is a subsidiary of Universal Health Services and operates psychiatric hospitals in 32 states.-History:Joey Jacobs, a former executive of Hospital Corporation of America for over 20 years, founded Psychiatric Solutions, Inc. in 1997...

 is the largest provider of psychiatric services in the nation.

A conceptually related institution is the for-profit HMO, which now comprises the predominant means of delivering medical services in the United States.

Advocates of such institutions claim they are able to provide better care at lower cost

Cost

In production, research, retail, and accounting, a cost is the value of money that has been used up to produce something, and hence is not available for use anymore. In business, the cost may be one of acquisition, in which case the amount of money expended to acquire it is counted as cost. In this...

 due to higher efficiency.

Detractors, however, claim that the relative success of for-profit medical providers arises from their positioning themselves in the medical marketplace in such a manner as to offer mainly profitable care services for a largely affluent and insured clientele whilst avoiding unprofitable care areas. Critics thus claim, for example, that for-profit hospitals specialize in such highly lucrative fields as medical rehabilitation, elective/plastic surgery, and cardiology

Cardiology

Cardiology is a medical specialty dealing with disorders of the heart . The field includes diagnosis and treatment of congenital heart defects, coronary artery disease, heart failure, valvular heart disease and electrophysiology...

 while avoiding provision of loss-making services such as emergency medicine

Emergency medicine

Emergency medicine is a medical specialty in which physicians care for patients with acute illnesses or injuries which require immediate medical attention. While not usually providing long-term or continuing care, emergency medicine physicians diagnose a variety of illnesses and undertake acute...

 which in turn caters mainly to the indigent. Analogously, critics of for-profit HMOs argue that such firms disproportionately insure healthy people, while simultaneously eschewing chronically ill patients, who must then by default be cared for disproportionately by public insurance schemes and non-profit providers—thus a so-called "dumping" of undesirable patients.

They have also been criticised by elements of the Canadian medical establishment as providing inferior care at higher cost. See this commentary in the Canadian Medical Association Journal

Canadian Medical Association Journal

The Canadian Medical Association Journal is a general medical journal that is published biweekly by the Canadian Medical Association . It covers research and ideas aimed at improving health for people in Canada and globally. CMAJ publishes original clinical research, analyses and reviews, news,...

 and this editorial in the New England Journal of Medicine

New England Journal of Medicine

The New England Journal of Medicine is an English-language peer-reviewed medical journal published by the Massachusetts Medical Society. It describes itself as the oldest continuously published medical journal in the world.-History:...

.