Official Seal, Everything Is Broken (2026)

Everything Is Broken

Report No. 1 · Nonprofit Hospital Executive Pay vs Charity Care · Annual Report, 2026 edition

Tennessee · Ranked 5 of 1033 by CEO pay.

Vanderbilt University Medical Center

Jeffrey R Balser MD PhD, President And CEO. Fiscal year ending 2025-06.

$16.5M
CEO total compensation
Form 990 Part VII, columns D+E+F
2.82%
of expenses spent on charity care
Schedule H Part I line 7a
7.1%
CEO pay as a share of all charity care

Also listed with a chief executive title in the same filings: C Wright Pinson MD MBA, Deputy CEO & Chief Health System Officer, $6,637,915. Where a chief executive retired during the year, the filing reports the final-year payout.

§1The filing

Total revenue
$8,674,383,028
Total expenses
$8,258,963,378
Net assets
$2,959,481,167
Employees
38,678
Hospitals covered
6 facilities across 1 filing
Charity care, net
$233,093,209
Bad debt
$17,259,145
Medicare surplus (shortfall), as filed
($375,516,965)
CEO pay from the organization (Part VII col. D)
$14,688,567
From related organizations (col. E)
$0
Other compensation, including deferred pay and nontaxable benefits (col. F)
$1,792,572
CEO total compensation (D+E+F)
$16,481,139 to Jeffrey R Balser MD PhD

Medicare surplus (shortfall) is Schedule H Part III line 7: Medicare revenue minus the cost of Medicare care. A figure in parentheses is a shortfall. Like bad debt, it is not community benefit on the IRS form.

Source: Form 990, Vanderbilt University Medical Center, EIN 35-2528741, fiscal year ending 2025-06, as published by the IRS. CEO identification: ceo title multiple.

§2Community benefit versus charity care

What the system reported as total community benefit (Schedule H line 7k)$721.0M Of which charity care to patients who could not pay (line 7a)$233.1M (32%)

The rest of line 7k is Medicaid shortfall, medical education, research, subsidized services and contributions. Bad debt ($17.3M) and Medicare shortfall are reported separately by the IRS and are not community benefit on the form.

Every number on this page was copied from the filing linked above. If a figure is wrong, send the filing that contradicts it and the correction runs at the top of this page.

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Vanderbilt University Medical Center: CEO pay $16.5M, charity care 2.82% of expenses