CrowdTrust Research · 2026 Edition
The 2026 Health & Medical report
Healthcare is the category where a single bad experience is most likely to permanently change a customer's opinion of a provider. A surprise out-of-network bill, a denied prior authorisation, a pharmacy that won't transfer a prescription before the weekend — these are the moments that define reviews in this space. The 2026 ranking rewards providers and vendors who handled the difficult conversations well and penalises those whose patients had to escalate to regulators, state attorneys general, or media to get basic answers.
CrowdTrust's 2026 ranking spans six sub-categories: hospitals and clinics, dental services, pharmacies, medical equipment vendors, health insurers, and alternative medicine. We weighted reviews that describe billing events, prior authorisation outcomes, and post-procedure follow-up more heavily than reviews of routine visits, because those moments most reliably predict whether a patient stays with a provider or switches.
The clearest 2026 shift is that the No Surprises Act has fundamentally changed the billing complaint landscape. Surprise out-of-network charges still occur, but the volume of complaints has measurably declined since 2023 enforcement began. The new dominant grievance is prior-authorisation friction — denials, delays, and unclear appeal paths — which now accounts for the largest share of 1-star insurer and specialty-clinic reviews.
