Advocate Health notched a strong 2025 with more revenue, patients, operating income and bottom line gains than the year prior.
The nation’s third-largest nonprofit health system reported Wednesday over $38.9 billion in total revenue during the year ended Dec. 31, 2025, a nearly 12% increase over the year before.
Total expenses rose a hair slower, by about 11%, to $37.4 billion, leaving the organization with more than $1.5 billion in operating income (4.0% operating margin). It had reported a $1.2 billion operating income (3.5% operating margin) in 2024.
Those year-to-year operating gains were also shared across Advocate Health’s various business units: Advocate Aurora Health, the Atrium Health Charlotte-Mecklenburg Hospital Authority and Atrium Health Wake Forest Baptist.
The full system saw its total bedded patients rise 4.5% year over year to nearly 750,000, while inpatient length of stay dipped by 1.5% and case mix index (a measure of case severity) dipped 1.1%. The number of surgeries and ED visits also rose 1.7% and 3.9%, respectively. Payer mix also shifted slightly toward a greater share of Medicaid patients than in the prior year.
Advocate Health’s bottom line jumped from 2024’s $2.9 billion to $4.6 billion, largely due to $3 billion of net investment income. Its cash-to-debt increased from 321% to 372%, with days of cash on hand reaching 283 days.
The system’s leadership has attributed Advocate Health’s formative 2022 merger as a key driver of its growth. CEO Eugene Woods, at this year’s J.P. Morgan Healthcare Conference, described $1.5 billion in annual operating savings due to the combination, as well as the creation of 23,000 additional jobs.
Advocate Health now operates 69 hospitals and over 1,000 total sites of care across its six-state footprint, and employs around 167,000 people. Earlier this year it previewed plans to increase its workforce spending by $776 million over 2025 levels via a combination of benefits changes, pay-range adjustments and an organization-wide $18.85-per-hour minimum wage that went into effect on Jan. 30.