America’s Largest Veterans Hospitals

Since 1930, when President Herbert Hoover created the Veterans Administration (now called the Department of Veterans Affairs) the VA has provided medical services for veterans who have been honorably discharged, whether they served in the Army, Navy, Marine Corps, or Air Force. Here are 50 of the most decorated war heroes in American history.

There were about 19 million veterans in the U.S. in 2021, according to Pew Research Center,  

with over 9 million enrolled in the VA health care program. With 1,298 VA health care facilities serving veterans, the Veterans Health Administration is the largest integrated health care system in the United States. 

The backbone of veterans medical services are the 171 VA Medical Centers around the country, which provide primary care, surgery, physical therapy, mental health services, pharmacies, and additional specialty services like oncology, prosthetics, and dental care. The service capacities of these centers vary widely, depending on their size. 

To determine America’s largest military hospitals, 24/7 Wall St. reviewed 50 largest VA hospitals by number of staffed beds, a ranking by health care market data and analytics firm Definitive Healthcare. Hospitals were ranked based on the number of staffed beds. The directory includes Veterans Medical Centers in U.S. states and territories. Network information is from VA.gov.

The largest VA hospital on our list has 716 staffed beds, which places it among the ranks of the largest hospitals in the nation. Of the largest VA Medical Centers, most are clustered in the Northeast, the South, and the Midwest, and many are in densely-populated urban areas, including Los Angeles, New York City, Houston, and Minneapolis. This is the state with the most VA hospitals.

Click here to see America’s largest veterans hospitals.