Cleveland Clinic

What does Cleveland Clinic own?

Cleveland Clinic owns and operates 23 hospitals, about 300 outpatient facilities, a research institute, and a medical school. Its properties span Ohio, Florida, Nevada, Toronto, Abu Dhabi, and London.

Is Cleveland Clinic publicly traded?

No. It is a nonprofit 501(c)(3) corporation with no shareholders and no stock.

Who founded Cleveland Clinic?

Four physicians, George Crile, Frank Bunts, William Lower, and John Phillips, founded it in 1921 after serving together in World War I medical units.

Where is Cleveland Clinic headquartered?

Its main campus and headquarters are on a 173-acre site near downtown Cleveland, Ohio.

How many brands does Cleveland Clinic own?

It operates under a single master brand with named specialty institutes rather than a portfolio of separate consumer brands.

Who owns Cleveland Clinic?

Nobody owns it in the equity sense. It is a nonprofit governed by a board of directors, with surpluses reinvested in the system.

What is Cleveland Clinic's revenue?

It reported 18.3 billion dollars in operating revenue for fiscal year 2025, with 913 million dollars in operating income and a 5.0 percent operating margin.

Cleveland Clinic was founded in 1921 by four physicians: George W. Crile, Frank E. Bunts, William E. Lower, and John Phillips. Three of the four had served together in World War I medical units and returned with a vision for a group practice that combined patient care with research and teaching, an unusual model at the time.

The founders modeled the institution on the Mayo Clinic's group practice concept but adapted it to Cleveland. They built a reputation for surgical innovation, with Crile pioneering blood pressure measurement in surgery and thyroid operations, and the clinic grew steadily through the mid-20th century.

Major milestones included the development of coronary artery bypass surgery techniques in the 1950s and 1960s, which made Cleveland Clinic a global center for cardiac care. Its heart program has been ranked first in the US for decades. Later innovations included the first near-total face transplant in the United States in 2008.

Expansion beyond Ohio began in the 1990s with a Florida campus, followed by the Lou Ruvo Center for Brain Health in Las Vegas in 2009, Cleveland Clinic Abu Dhabi in 2015, and a London facility in 2022. Tom Mihaljevic became CEO in 2018, succeeding Delos Cosgrove, and has steered the system through post-pandemic recovery to record financial performance in 2025.

As a nonprofit, Cleveland Clinic reports community benefit spending and charity care in public filings. Its environmental programs address energy use across a large physical footprint, including efforts to reduce emissions at its main campus and regional sites.

The system's most scrutinized ethical questions involve the economics of nonprofit healthcare: executive compensation, billing practices, charity care levels, and whether its international expansion aligns with its charitable mission. It discloses community benefit annually and defends its global sites as mission-consistent revenue that supports domestic care.

Cleveland Clinic has faced recurring scrutiny over billing and pricing, including disputes with insurers and questions about surprise billing before federal transparency rules took effect. As a major nonprofit employer it has also dealt with union organizing and staffing debates common across the sector.

Its Abu Dhabi partnership has periodically drawn questions about operating under a government partner, and like most large systems it faces ongoing attention to executive pay in the context of tax-exempt status. No single controversy has defined it, but the combination of size and nonprofit status keeps it under steady public review.