Tenet Healthcare Corporation

Is Tenet Healthcare publicly traded?

Yes. Tenet trades on the New York Stock Exchange under the ticker THC and is a component of the S&P 400 index. Its shares are held broadly by institutional investors. The company completed its initial public offering in 1969 under its former name, National Medical Enterprises.

Who owns Tenet Healthcare?

No single entity controls Tenet. It is a widely held public company whose largest shareholders are institutional asset managers such as Vanguard and BlackRock. Day-to-day control rests with Chairman and CEO Saum Sutaria and the board of directors.

When was Tenet Healthcare founded?

Tenet was incorporated in 1969 as National Medical Enterprises by attorneys Richard Eamer, Leonard Cohen, and John Bedrosian in Los Angeles. The company changed its name to Tenet Healthcare in 1995 after acquiring American Medical International.

What is USPI?

United Surgical Partners International is Tenet's ambulatory surgery subsidiary and the largest ASC platform in the United States. As of late 2026 it held interests in more than 530 ambulatory surgery centers and 25 surgical hospitals across 37 states. Tenet took a majority stake in 2015 and full ownership by 2021.

How many hospitals does Tenet own?

As of December 31, 2025, Tenet's hospital segment comprised 50 acute care and specialty hospitals plus 132 outpatient facilities, concentrated in eight states. The company has been shrinking this count deliberately, selling 14 hospitals in 2024 alone to focus on ambulatory growth.

What happened to Conifer Health Solutions?

Conifer remains a Tenet subsidiary. In February 2026 CommonSpirit Health paid to end its revenue cycle contract early and redeemed its 23.8% equity stake, returning Conifer to full Tenet ownership. Services to CommonSpirit wound down through October 2026, and Conifer cut about 1,000 positions as part of the restructuring.

Three attorneys, Richard Eamer, Leonard Cohen, and John Bedrosian, incorporated National Medical Enterprises in 1969 in Los Angeles. The company went public the same year and used the proceeds to buy four general hospitals in California. Through the 1970s and 1980s it expanded aggressively into nursing homes, medical products, and psychiatric and rehabilitation hospitals. By 1990 NME had become one of the largest hospital companies in the country, with more than 200 facilities and over 45,000 employees.

The early 1990s brought the deepest crisis in the company's history. Federal investigations found that NME's psychiatric hospital division had paid kickbacks for patient referrals and billed insurers for unnecessary treatments. In 1994 the company paid roughly $379 million to settle criminal and civil charges, at the time the largest healthcare fraud settlement ever, and divested its specialty psychiatric business. Eamer resigned as chairman.

NME rebuilt by acquiring American Medical International for $3.3 billion in 1995, roughly doubling its size, and changed its name to Tenet Healthcare. The combined company moved its headquarters from Santa Barbara to Dallas in 2004. Through the 2000s Tenet faced further federal scrutiny over Medicare outlier billing, settling with the government in 2006 for more than $700 million while admitting no wrongdoing.

A major expansion came in 2013 when Tenet acquired Vanguard Health Systems for about $4.3 billion including assumed debt, taking the hospital count from 49 to 79 and adding markets such as San Antonio, Phoenix, and Detroit. Trevor Fetter led the company as CEO from 2003 to 2017, followed briefly by Ronald Rittenmeyer.

The ambulatory pivot began in June 2015, when Tenet combined its outpatient assets with United Surgical Partners International in a joint venture, taking a 50.1% stake. Welsh, Carson, Anderson and Stowe, USPI's private equity backer, retained the rest. Tenet raised its ownership to 95% in 2018 and to 100% by 2021, making USPI a wholly owned subsidiary and the engine of the company's growth.

Between 2020 and 2025 Tenet sold dozens of hospitals, exiting markets in Massachusetts, Florida's Treasure Coast, South Carolina, Alabama, and parts of California, using proceeds to repay debt and buy back stock. Sutaria, promoted from within in 2021, formalized the strategy: high-acuity surgery, de novo and acquired ASCs, and a smaller, higher-margin hospital base.

In February 2026 Tenet completed a transaction with CommonSpirit Health in which CommonSpirit paid to exit its revenue cycle contract early and redeem its 23.8% equity stake in Conifer, returning Conifer to full Tenet ownership. CommonSpirit will pay approximately $1.9 billion over three years, with revenue cycle services transitioning in-house through October 2026. Third quarter 2026 results, reported October 29, showed net operating revenue of $5.63 billion and adjusted diluted EPS up 79.5% year over year, prompting another increase in full-year guidance.

Tenet publishes an annual ESG report covering community benefit, workforce, and environmental metrics. As a hospital operator its social impact reporting centers on charity care and community investment rather than product sustainability. The company reports spending on uncompensated care and community health programs across its markets, and it operates graduate medical education programs that train residents at its teaching hospitals, most prominently Detroit Medical Center.

On governance, Tenet discloses board diversity statistics and maintains standard ethics and compliance infrastructure, a legacy of its 1990s and 2000s regulatory settlements, which included a corporate integrity agreement with the Department of Health and Human Services. The company is not a certified B Corporation, which is normal for the sector.

Tenet has appeared on Fortune's list of the World's Most Admired Companies in the Health Care: Medical Facilities category in multiple years, and its hospitals regularly appear on IBM Watson Health and Lown Institute rankings for clinical quality and health equity. USPI-affiliated surgery centers have been recognized by Newsweek in its America's Best Ambulatory Surgery Centers rankings. The company has also been named to Forbes lists of America's best large employers.

The company's regulatory history is the most consequential part of its public record. As National Medical Enterprises, the company paid about $379 million in 1994 to resolve criminal and civil charges that its psychiatric hospitals paid kickbacks for patient referrals and billed for unnecessary care. The case prompted federal reforms and ended the careers of its founders.

In 2006 Tenet agreed to pay more than $700 million to settle claims that it gamed Medicare's outlier payment system, without admitting wrongdoing. In October 2016 Tenet paid $513 million to resolve a Justice Department case alleging two Georgia subsidiaries paid kickbacks to clinics that referred Medicaid patients; two subsidiaries admitted to the conduct as part of non-prosecution agreements, and a Tenet executive was separately convicted and later had the conviction overturned on appeal.

More recently, scrutiny has been commercial rather than legal. The company cut more than 1,000 Conifer positions in late 2026 after the CommonSpirit contract ended. Its hospital sales in underserved markets, including the 2024 closure of St. Vincent's in Worcester and the sale of safety-net hospitals in Alabama, drew criticism from local officials and unions who argued the company was exiting lower-margin communities.