Business Description

Overview Ardent Health, Inc. was initially formed in Delaware in 2015 as Ardent Health Partners, LLC. On July 17, 2024, Ardent Health Partners, LLC converted from a Delaware limited liability company into a Delaware corporation in connection with its initial public offering and changed its name to Ardent Health Partners, Inc. On June 3, 2025, Ardent Health Partners, Inc. changed its name to Ardent Health, Inc. Ardent Health, Inc. is a holding company that has affiliates that operate acute care hospitals and other healthcare facilities and employ physicians. The terms "Ardent," the "Company," "we," "our" and "us," as used in this Annual Report on Form 10-K ("Annual Report"), refer to Ardent Health, Inc. and its affiliates and, on or prior to July 16, 2024, Ardent Health Partners, LLC and its affiliates, unless stated otherwise or indicated by context. The term "affiliates" includes direct and indirect subsidiaries of Ardent and partnerships and joint ventures in which such subsidiaries are equity owners. Ardent is a provider of healthcare services in the United States, operating in eight growing mid-sized urban markets across six states: Texas, Oklahoma, New Mexico, New Jersey, Idaho, and Kansas. We deliver care through a system of 30 acute care hospitals, more than 280 sites of care, and over 2,000 providers that are either employed by or affiliated 1 with us, as of December 31, 2025. We hold a leading position in a majority of our markets 2 and believe we are one of the leading healthcare systems based on market share and given our integrated network of hospitals, ambulatory facilities, and physician practices. We operate either independently or in partnership with premier academic medical centers, large not-for-profit hospital systems, community physicians, and a community foundation through our well-established and differentiated joint venture (“JV”) model. Collectively, we operate as a unified organization with a consumer-centric approach to caring for our patients and our communities. Our healthcare delivery model is built around the consumer and seeks to optimize access for patients and continuity of care. We have built a comprehensive healthcare ecosystem that serves the unique needs of each patient over the course of his or her healthcare journey while our local physicians and providers deliver care based on the standard for their own market. We focus on establishing long-term relationships to engage with patients over their lifetime and seek to deliver superior, cost-effective health outcomes. On average, we care for approximately 17,000 people every day across our healthcare ecosystem and during 2025, we served approximately 1.2 million unique patients who had more than 6.1 million visits with our healthcare providers. We provide both general and specialty services, including internal medicine, general surgery, cardiology, oncology, orthopedics, women’s services, neurology, urology, and emergency services, within inpatient and ambulatory care settings. In addition to our 30 acute care hospitals, we operate a broad network of ambulatory facilities and telehealth services, including 188 primary care and specialty care clinics, four ambulatory surgery centers (“ASCs”), 45 urgent care centers, two free-standing emergency departments, and 12 diagnostic imaging centers. Bolstered by our provider network, which consists of 400 primary care providers and 1,620 specialists, our network allows us to provide accessible and convenient healthcare to our patients in the optimal location, whether that be in a hospital, ambulatory care or virtual care setting. As part of our growth strategy, we are accelerating our ambulatory and physician alignment initiatives to expand both physical and virtual consumer access points. We expect that this approach will grow our market share and drive performance in connection with our value-based care initiatives, which are designed to deliver high-quality care that exceeds Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (“CMS”) benchmarks to patients in a cost-effective manner for payors. We leverage an advanced technology platform to drive enhanced care coordination and system productivity, which we believe leads to improved outcomes based on our safety of care, readmission, and mortality rates measured against applicable CMS benchmarks.…