{"id":185307,"date":"2026-03-10T06:56:12","date_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:56:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185307\/"},"modified":"2026-03-10T06:56:12","modified_gmt":"2026-03-10T06:56:12","slug":"florida-judge-orders-leapfrog-to-remove-safety-grades-for-5-palm-beach-county-hospitals-sun-sentinel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/185307\/","title":{"rendered":"Florida judge orders Leapfrog to remove safety grades for 5 Palm Beach County hospitals \u2013 Sun Sentinel"},"content":{"rendered":"

A Florida judge has ruled that Leapfrog Group must remove its safety grades dating back to fall 2024 for five Palm Beach County hospitals owned by Tenet Healthcare Corp.<\/p>\n

Florida Judge Donald Middlebrooks ordered Leapfrog to stop assigning safety grades to Tenet\u2019s five Palm Beach hospitals under the current scoring framework if they choose not to submit their data or otherwise participate in the program in the future. The judge also ordered Leapfrog to withdraw the safety grades for these five hospitals for fall 2024, spring 2025 and fall 2025.<\/p>\n

\u201c\u200bThis ruling validates what hospitals across the country have experienced firsthand: Leapfrog is an organization built on deceptive and unfair practices that harm the very same patients it claims to serve,\u201d said Maggie Gill, Eastern Group president of Palm Beach Health Network<\/p>\n

\u201cWe brought this lawsuit because patients deserve transparency. \u00a0Hospitals should no longer be coerced into participating in a rating system or subjected to so-called \u2018Safety Grades\u2019 based on made-up data. \u00a0We hope this decision leads to meaningful changes nationwide, so that hospitals are no longer subjected to Leapfrog\u2019s deceptive grading system and pressure tactics.\u201d<\/p>\n

Tenet had sued Leapfrog last year over poor grades given to its Palm Beach Network hospitals, calling the grading process unfair and deceptive. Tenet alleged that the rating organization pressured hospitals to participate in its surveys and pay membership fees, or face poor safety grades. In its complaint, Tenet said the hospitals decided to stop participating in Leapfrog\u2019s surveys and allegedly received worse grades afterward.<\/p>\n

Leapfrog publishes A-to-F grades twice a year to help patients assess hospital safety, and says its methodology is open to the public, reviewed by independent experts, and updated annually with input from hospitals and researchers.<\/p>\n

The five Tenet hospitals, referred to as Palm Beach Health Network<\/a>, are Good Samaritan Medical Center and St. Mary\u2019s Medical Center in West Palm Beach; Delray Medical Center in Delray Beach; Palm Beach Gardens Medical Center in Palm Beach Gardens; and West Boca Medical Center in Boca Raton. Two of the hospitals received a \u201cD,\u201d while the other three received a \u201cF\u201d in Leapfrog\u2019s spring survey released April 30, the day the suit was filed. In fall 2025, the most recent round of safety grades, three of the hospitals received a \u201cD,\u201d one received an \u201cF\u201d and one was not graded.<\/p>\n

At the center of the dispute is a Leapfrog 2024 policy change that affects hospitals that fail to voluntarily submit safety data. \u201cThe result is a system built on inaccurate data and pressure tactics that mislead the public and damage hospitals\u2019 reputations,\u201d Tenet asserted in its legal filings.<\/p>\n

The judge agreed and ruled Leapfrog\u2019s methodology was \u201cneither reliable nor defensible,\u201d<\/p>\n

After the ruling, Leapfrong Group issued this statement: \u201cWe vehemently disagree with this decision, as we believe it threatens the First Amendment rights of every American. We will appeal it immediately.\u201d<\/p>\n

Leapfrog CEO Leah Binder says the Florida judge\u2019s ruling has greater implications than just hospital ratings.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe cannot accept the decision\u2019s main conclusion, that Florida citizens \u2014 and all Americans \u2014 don\u2019t have a right to hear Leapfrog\u2019s expert perspective on how well these five for-profit Tenet-owned hospitals care for patients. If this decision was allowed to stand, the implications would seriously undermine all published ratings and reviews in all industries, not just Leapfrog\u2019s ratings of the safety of hospitals. The decision gives businesses in Florida the right to sue ratings organizations if they feel harmed by a rating of their product.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cWhile we intend to appeal, we will comply with the injunction in the meantime,\u201d Binder said. \u201cThe Spring 2026 update of the Leapfrog Hospital Safety Grade will continue as planned, with some modifications based on the injunction, which will be shared in the coming days.\u201d<\/p>\n

South Florida Sun Sentinel health reporter Cindy Goodman can be reached at cgoodman@sunsentinel.com.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Florida judge has ruled that Leapfrog Group must remove its safety grades dating back to fall 2024…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":185308,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[3337,558,8228,28,30,29,571,114,115,557,7861,109,4556],"class_list":["post-185307","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-florida","tag-boca-raton","tag-business","tag-delray-beach","tag-florida","tag-florida-headlines","tag-florida-news","tag-health","tag-latest-headlines","tag-news","tag-palm-beach-county","tag-palm-beach-gardens","tag-social","tag-west-palm-beach"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185307","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=185307"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/185307\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/185308"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=185307"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=185307"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=185307"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}