Largest healthcare companies in the US: the top 25 by revenue

This list is for people who sell into healthcare: software and data vendors, staffing and services firms, suppliers of equipment and consumables, logistics providers, consultants and agencies. It ranks the 25 largest US healthcare companies by revenue from their latest annual reports, groups them by where they sit in the flow of money, and explains where buying decisions are made at each type.

The 25 largest healthcare companies in the US

Revenue as reported for each company's latest fiscal year filed by 30 October 2026. All file 10-Ks with the SEC except Kaiser Permanente, a nonprofit that publishes its results.

Revenue is total revenue as reported. Medtronic is legally domiciled in Ireland and files a 10-K; its principal executive office is in Galway. Employee counts are as of each fiscal year end. Just below the cut: Becton Dickinson ($21.8 billion, year to September 2025) and Tenet Healthcare ($21.3 billion).

Where the money flows

Grouping the 25 companies by what they mainly do (our classification; CVS and Cigna straddle two groups):

The distributors show why revenue overstates size in healthcare. McKesson, Cencora and Cardinal Health together reported $979 billion of revenue but about 158,000 employees, because most of what they bill is the cost of medicines passing through. HCA, with a fifth of McKesson's revenue, employs about 320,000 people, including about 90,000 part-time and PRN staff.

How this list is built

• What's counted. Total revenue in the consolidated income statement for each company's latest fiscal year, as filed by 30 October 2026. Fiscal years differ: McKesson's ended in March 2026, Cardinal Health's in June 2026 and Cencora's in September 2025, so the table compares different 12-month periods.
• Who's in scope. US-listed companies whose main business is healthcare, plus Kaiser Permanente, which publishes its results. Medtronic is included because it files 10-Ks and reports in dollars.
• Who's left out. Walgreens, which was acquired by affiliates of funds managed by Sycamore Partners on 28 August 2025 and stopped filing; nonprofit hospital systems other than Kaiser (see the largest hospital systems); and healthcare companies based outside the US, such as Roche (about $74.1 billion in 2025; see the largest pharmaceutical companies).
• Other lists. Fortune's healthcare sectors and market-value rankings from financial sites use other measures and dates. We didn't copy them.

How many healthcare businesses there are in the US

County Business Patterns counts establishments with paid employees. For 2023:

Hospitals are few but huge: 1,772 of the 7,523 hospital establishments have 1,000 or more employees. Ambulatory care is the reverse: 367,109 of its 701,862 establishments have fewer than five.

Where buying decisions sit

General guidance, by type of company:

• Insurers. Claims, clinical and care management, distribution and IT leaders each own budgets; see the largest health insurance companies for how those markets split.
• Distributors. Distribution center operations, transportation, IT and supplier relations. Decisions about warehouse equipment, automation and transport are made regionally within national standards.
• Pharmacy and benefits. Pharmacy operations, store and clinic leaders, and the benefits business, which sells to employers and health plans.
• Drugmakers and device makers. Research and clinical operations, manufacturing sites, quality and commercial teams, with procurement running supplier qualification.
• Hospitals. Supply chain, nursing, IT, facilities and finance, often decided at system level for large contracts and at the hospital for smaller ones. The guide to selling to hospitals covers the committee process.

Worked example: a contract manufacturer selling to medical device makers

Illustrative example. The company, its prices and its conversion rates are invented; establishment counts come from County Business Patterns 2023.

The seller: Keystone Precision (keystone-precision.example), which machines and finishes implant and instrument components under an ISO 13485 quality system. The goal: two new device customers in a year.

1. Size the market. There are 1,310 surgical and medical instrument manufacturing establishments in the US. 284 of them have 100 or more employees, the size that usually buys outsourced components.
2. Name the targets. Start with the device makers in the table (Medtronic, Stryker, Abbott, J&J's MedTech business) and their 10-K property sections, then add mid-size and private manufacturers.
3. Find the people. Supplier development or sourcing managers, the manufacturing engineering lead for the product line, and quality.
4. Do the arithmetic. If Keystone reaches the right people at half of the 284 sites (142), and 10% start a supplier qualification (14), winning 3 at an assumed $400,000 a year each would add $1.2 million of annual revenue, after a qualification that can take most of a year.

Matching each site to its sourcing and engineering contacts is the slow part at this volume; Bebop researches each account in a list and writes a playbook for it.

Subject: Second source for [component type] at [company]

Hi [first name],

I saw [company] is [launching / scaling / moving production of] [product line] at [site].

Sourcing teams at device makers often tell us their risk is a single qualified supplier for machined components on a growing line.

We machine and finish [component type] under an ISO 13485 quality system, with documentation ready for supplier qualification. Would 20 minutes be useful to see whether we'd be a fit as a second source?

[Your name]
[Phone number]

Common mistakes

• Treating revenue as headcount. Distributors bill hundreds of billions with relatively few employees; hospitals the reverse.
• Mixing fiscal years. Note the year end next to every figure.
• Pitching the parent. UnitedHealth, CVS and Cigna each run several businesses with separate budgets.
• Missing the regulators. Medicare, Medicaid, FDA and state rules shape what each type can buy and how fast.

Next step: for one segment in more depth, see the largest health insurance companies.