Mayo Clinic Again Earns Top Spot in U.S. News' Hospital Rankings

The magazine said this year’s report used an altered methodology to avoid penalizing facilities for treating low-income patients or for accepting high-risk transfers.

Mayo Clinic was No. 1 in diabetes/endocrinology, gastroenterology, geriatrics, gynecology, nephrology and neurology/neurosurgery. | Mayo Clinic

U.S. News & World Report on Tuesday released its annual hospital honor roll, ranking Minnesota’s Mayo Clinic on top for the second straight year.

CLICK HERE: To see the  rankings, with breakdowns by specialties, regions.

The magazine’s 2017-18 list of best hospitals placed Cleveland Clinic at No. 2, followed by Johns Hopkins Hospital in Maryland, which was fourth a year ago. Last year’s No. 3, Massachusetts General Hospital, dropped a spot to fourth.

The honor roll recognizes the 20 hospitals that received the highest score across 16 specialties and five procedure and condition rankings.

It’s among a handful of rankings often touted by hospitals to entice patients who are deciding where to go for care. The lists are not without criticism, however, especially among large safety-net and teaching centers whose rankings have suffered because they treat larger at-risk populations.

RELATED: The controversy over rating hospitals rages on.

"I don't think that they're the ultimate measure of quality," Toby Cosgrove, MD, president and CEO of the Cleveland Clinic, told the Cleveland Plain Dealer . "I think gradually over time it's getting fairer and better. It's less reliant on reputation and more reliant on quality metrics because we have more quality metrics."

U.S. News said this year’s report used an altered methodology to avoid penalizing hospitals for treating low-income patients or for accepting high-risk cases transferred from other hospitals.

Among the specialties, Cleveland Clinic was ranked first in cardiology and heart surgery; University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center in Houston was tops in cancer care; and New York’s Hospital for Special Surgery was first for orthopedics.

Chart: Physician leaders play a big role in honor roll.

Mayo Clinic ranked No. 1 in diabetes/endocrinology, gastroenterology/GI surgery, geriatrics, gynecology, nephrology and neurology/neurosurgery.

This year, 152 hospitals were nationally ranked in at least one specialty.

Among children’s hospitals, the top three were Boston Children’s Hospital, Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia and Cincinnati Children's Hospital Medical Center.

It was the magazine’s 28th year of ranking hospitals. The lists compare more than more than 4,500 medical centers nationwide in 25 specialties, procedures and conditions.

Here is the U.S. News honor roll for 2017-18:

1. Mayo Clinic, Rochester, Minnesota.

2. Cleveland Clinic

3. Cedars-Sinai Medical Center, Los Angeles

4. Barnes-Jewish Hospital, St. Louis

5. Northwestern Memorial Hospital, Chicago

6. UPMC Presbyterian Shadyside, Pittsburgh

7. University of Colorado, Hospital, Aurora

8. Thomas Jefferson University Hospitals, Philadelphia

9. Duke University Hospital, Durham, N.C.

10. Mount Sinai Hospital, New York

11. NYU Langone Medical Center, New York

12. Mayo Clinic Phoenix

13. Johns Hopkins Hospital, Baltimore

14. Massachusetts General Hospital, Boston

15. UCSF Medical Center, San Francisco

16. University of Michigan Hospitals and Health Centers, Ann Arbor

17. Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center, Los Angeles

18. New York-Presbyterian Hospital, N.Y.

19. Stanford Health Care-Stanford Hospital, Stanford, Calif.

20. Hospitals of the University of Pennsylvania-Penn Presbyterian, Philadelphia