r/frederickmd • u/2toneSound • 1d ago
Frederick County Is Growing. Why Don’t We Have a Second Hospital Yet?
Frederick County desperately needs a second full-service hospital. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, our population has grown from 271,717 in 2020 to 302,883 in 2025, an increase of 11.5% in just five years.
Meanwhile, Frederick Health Hospital recorded 75,707 emergency department visits in fiscal year 2023, making it the fourth-busiest emergency department in Maryland at the time. That’s approximately 207 ER visits every single day.
We cannot continue expanding residential developments without making comparable investments in healthcare infrastructure. A county with over 300,000 residents and this level of emergency department demand deserves serious consideration of a second hospital
Sources:
U.S. Census Bureau — Frederick County Population Data (2025) https://www.census.gov/quickfacts/fact/table/frederickcountymaryland/PST045225
Frederick Health — 2023 Community Impact Report (ER statistics, pages 18–19) https://www.frederickhealth.org/documents/Community_Impact_Report_2023.pdf
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u/notavegan90 1d ago
Healthcare has been commercialized.
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u/LimpAd4924 1d ago
We have a winner!!
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u/notavegan90 1d ago
Private equity had a claim. Obnoxious insurance rates. Healthcare in itself being predatory. I won’t discredit those that earned PHD.
Side note.
We are one of the most important counties in the world. Our proximity to the federal institutions, it’s absurd.Also. Fuck trump.
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u/Fregadero88 1d ago
I don't think it's the PhDs that caused any of the problem. More than likely MBAs commercialized healthcare.
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u/LimpAd4924 1d ago
There are MBAs in Europe in leadership in healthcare. There’s also MBAs in leadership and relevant positions in public organizations. The issue is the way U.S. health system is structured. The U.S. has never not had commercial healthcare.
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u/miss_spock06 1d ago
This is not a decision Frederick Health, or any other entity looking to establish in the County, can make, as alluded by other comments. https://mhcc.maryland.gov/healthcare-communities/state-health-planning-and-certificate-need-con/certificate-need-con
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u/ashberryy 1d ago
Everybody wants public services, nobody wants to pay taxes.
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u/PeachPassionBrute 1d ago
I want to pay taxes. I’m proud to pay taxes.
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u/bruzdnconfuzd 1d ago
Right? This is how we get healthcare for everyone across the board. Everyone puts in a little toward the greater good and provision for… well, everyone! And the secondary benefits from better access, education, and resources would only improve quality of life and reduce long-term costs.
Instead, we are beholden to all the selfish people that don’t see a reason to pay into a system that doesn’t directly benefit them. “Why should my taxes help THEM?” Because we live in a society, Cleetus. Please stop falling for the higher-taxes scare tactic.
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u/PeachPassionBrute 1d ago
There’s definitely a certain type of voter that hates the idea that their tax money goes to “the wrong people” or they seem to believe they should keep everything and all of society should just be private businesses.
It’s like they hold selfishness as a virtue.
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u/QualifiedApathetic 1d ago
I recall reading about a poll on taxes a long time ago. People were more concerned with the idea that others weren't paying their fair share and the complexity of the tax code than how much they personally paid in taxes. I don't think anyone loves giving up their money, but I think most understand that it's necessary for a functioning society.
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u/Adventurous-Tap-7418 1d ago
It isn't that we don't pay enough it's that what we pay isn't used to help us
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u/YeahNoCo 1d ago
Or we're told if we raise the taxes it'll fix x, y, or z, and then we never see that happen....
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u/jracheff 5h ago
Well sure - because elections are popularity contests and wealthy folks want to keep more of their money.
I’d say it’s a continuum and some candidates are closer to the principles position than others, but you don’t get elected by telling people the truth. You get elected by telling them you agree with them - that’s our system.
And even then some people want things done - as long as it’s done somewhere else or doesn’t inconvenience them. So we get caught in bureaucracy and risk aversion then getting anything done.
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u/jracheff 12h ago
Who are “we” and “us”? Everyone benefits from living in an orderly society but that’s doesn’t mean that every need and preference is always met.
Now that doesn’t mean that any organization - public or private - always makes optimal decisions but in any community there are a lot of needs and stakeholders all clamoring for more.
If you look at tax dollars collected relative to inflation, population, and property values taxes are pretty steady I think.
It’s not uncommon for folks complaining about taxes are people that have other means to meet their needs and so would rather not use their money to contribute to public services: I have a car, what do I care about buses? I have private health insurance, what do I care about healthcare access? I own property with a great view, what do I care about a data center or big development being built in a poor part of the county?
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u/No-Disk-6649 The Sewers 1d ago
Can anyone that works at FHH confirm that physical space/beds are the limiting factor, not staffing?
I only have the perspective of a patient but every time I am there, I wait hours only to be led down hallways of empty rooms. Would love some insight, because from the outside it just seems like Frederick Health trying to maximize profits.
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u/frigginjensen New Market 1d ago
Varies by time but I’ve been there when it was so packed that patients were being seen in hallways.
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u/Disaster-Dad 1d ago
By themselves, those stats aren’t really a reason to need another hospital. There’s a lot of other factors that go into hospitals, and especially not Emergency Department numbers alone (which are typically chronically understaffed and have high burnout rates even in the best resourced ones).
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u/ActuaryFew6884 1d ago
What is that giant medical building that they built about 10 or so years ago where Solarex used to be (near intersections of Ballenger Creek pike, US 15, and I-70)? I know it's not a hospital per sé
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u/ShabbyBoa 1d ago
Are you talking about Crestwood? It’s a primary care/physical therapy/lab
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u/QualifiedApathetic 1d ago
I used to see a psychiatrist and therapist there, ages ago, so they may still have that as well.
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u/mumblingzombie 1d ago
Because the one we have sucks enough ass for 2....
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u/mumblingzombie 1d ago
As a follow up...it was fmh(fuck my health)...but seeing as how they finally figured out that you only have memorials when people die....they now changed it to the frederick health hospital for health and stuff and its definitely better now...
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u/Aggravating-Bee-1970 1d ago
Completely agree that the hospital needs to grow with population. However the bigger more concerning thing to me is the population and housing growth without equal growth of the entire infrastructure.
Our electrical grid is nearing it's max, and renewable energy (solar, wind, etc) that everyone wants to rely on is not capable of keeping up with the growth of demand we are putting on the grid (electric vehicles, elimination of natural gas, data centers, etc)
Our roads are already a cluster (15, 270, 70, downtown, 40, you name it). We continue to add more and more housing and more people are moving from MoCo or further but continue working in that area. Some are remote, but most are some sort of hybrid meaning they still travel for work.
Frederick is going to ruin its own charm. We continue to build up in the downtown area, adding to congestion in traffic, sidewalks etc. Frederick brickworks site is going to be a massive housing complex with a shopping center pulling more people/traffic downtown on a daily basis.
But sure, let's also get rid of even more green space and build a professional cricket stadium with a shopping complex (and even more housing) just to slam our infrastructure even more.
If we continue to build this way, then in +/- 10 years we are going to have a serious traffic, electrical sewage, plumbing issue in and around the city
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u/Successful-Ask9194 1d ago
"We continue to build up in the downtown area"
Most of the issues with traffic, parking etc stem from the fact that we've built very little housing in and around downtown for a couple generations and now it functions largely as a drive-to destination for the surrounding suburbia.
And suburbia doesn't scale:
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u/Aggravating-Bee-1970 11h ago
I do agree with you and with this concept. But I'm more looking at it in the mindset that most of the people that choose to live here, also choose to commute, thus we need more housing for the people AND more space for the cars.
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u/Successful-Ask9194 10h ago
Only about a third of the local workforce commutes out of county:
https://commerce.maryland.gov/media/193
And designing everything around cars means that you need a car for essentially any errand, not just your commute.
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u/Happy-Advertising853 12h ago
Frederick's "charm" is long gone. Now just an extention of Montgomery County, except the infrastructure. There is a fairly new Hospital in Germantown, which like 270, Frederick can learn to live with.
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u/RenRen9000 1d ago
You need people to work at that second hospital. A lot of people. Not many of them are getting into healthcare. They're not paid enough; there's too much red tape to get into and become a health professional in Maryland, and people from a certain political party have deemed them the enemy. So… Not going to happen any time soon. Get used to long waits, understaffed hospitals, and very high bills.
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u/transitfreedom 1d ago
https://youtu.be/pA7VkO-lwmc?is=qWTnvSGAAVpkCpOk
Cause this country don’t give a damn about people
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u/ReputationFar8283 1d ago
I’ve seen this asked a million times. The truth is hospitals may not look like “for profit” businesses but they are. From an economic standpoint why build a brand new hospital if it’ll only be filled up 1/4 to 1/3 of the time from the over flow from the main hospital? The obvious answer is it shouldn’t matter but if it’s only filled up half the time there are still major bills to pay which sucks but it’s the truth. Follow the money and watch the over capacity on a consistent basis and that’ll tell you when a new hospital will come to Frederick. Obviously everyone should have the right to get treated and have health care without having to wait for 3,5,10+ hours but that’s sadly not going to happen with the state of the world right now and it’s ridiculous and very upsetting.
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u/frigginjensen New Market 1d ago
Hospitals are no longer there to care for the community. They exist to make profit for corporations, executives, and shareholders.
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u/BluesBottleFly 1d ago
Kaiser was trying for years to get approval to build up in Frederick. Unfortunately, FMH has powerful friends, so their plan was squashed. Not sure if it was a zoning issue, or a real estate issue, but from what I've heard it was endless roadblocks and delays.
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u/InvoluntaryNarwhal 1d ago
God. I would kill for a fully kitted Kaiser building. Having to drive down to Gaithersburg for urgent care at Kaiser is a fucking drag when something feels wrong. Sucks to hear they already tried and failed to manage this.
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u/BluesBottleFly 1d ago
I'm sure the entire community would love to have a Kaiser hospital up here. Even if they weren't members, just having an alternative choice is empowering. Agreed on the Gaithersburg drive. It's a drag. But better than having to drive into the city or the district.
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u/Grumplestump 1d ago
You took two different statistics,that are unrelated ,to “prove” the point you are trying to make. It would be better if you provided hospital census growth over the same period.
Also, people are admitted to hospitals without it being through an ED visit….
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u/Successful-Ask9194 1d ago
Hospitals, traffic, etc...the arguments start at NIMBY and work backwards from there.
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u/2toneSound 1d ago
What I saw and what ems I talked to were saying was not good, the care you provide when you have multiple patients at the same time is not the best care not because your bad but because they sent you to fail from the start
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u/QualifiedApathetic 1d ago
Good question. Just three years ago, I went to FMH and they had to send me to University of Maryland Medical Center in Baltimore after a couple of days because they weren't equipped to handle my case, which was a leukemia diagnosis. Shouldn't we have a hospital for those kinds of cases?
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u/Particular_Ad_4927 1d ago
We used to have 3. They’ve been consolidated and “optimized”. Fallston, Havre De Grace, Aberdeen Military Hospital.
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u/YeahNoCo 1d ago
I've heard a lot of people say they'd like to see a second hospital built in Frederick over the years. Doesn't seem like the actual city or county feels it's important.
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u/blacklegsanji88 11h ago
I'm pretty sure I remember my grandma who worked there years ago, kept telling me that fmh kept lobbying to make sure there's only one hospital in frederick so it makes them more money. Its just America and capitalism sadly. Who cares about people and faster care, when we can make money off your sickness 😭 this is not a thing literally anywhere else in the world. Insane, we need another hospital and we probably will never get another one for another 10 years 😭
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u/80aychdee 1d ago
This could be (and probably will be) a tone deaf comment. But it's more anecdotal than anything. I'm 40. I've never personally had to go to the emergency room in Frederick for myself. I've had to take my children numerous times to the pediatric side and only once have I had to wait over 45 minutes to be triaged. So my experience has only been from that perspective.
I think the Frederick Health system overall - again, in my experience - has been pretty good. My PC is through Frederick health. I've recently had to be seen for a torn meniscus and that was pretty seamless I think I had to wait like 4 days for an appointment and then another few days over the weekend to get an MRI. and then another few days to be seen for a cortisone injection.
My PC is hard to pin down but I don't have an issue seeing other doctors at the practice for sick visits.
But back to the hospital. When I go to take the kids I have never really seen the waiting room more than a third full. And these visits have been at all times of the day (my son has lung issues on top of the other kids having to go for other reasons).
I'm basing this comparison off living in Baltimore for over 10 years. Dealing with emergency rooms there where they are at capacity.
While it would be nice to have another hospital I don't think the county is at a capacity where one would be built.
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u/PossumSkull 1d ago
Last year I waited 4 hours to get taken to a room when I needed an emergency transfusion. This year my gallbladder gave up and I waited only 2 hours hunched over in extreme pain. The speed of the second one was cool until I found out I had to stay in pain over the weekend because there was no gastrointestinal surgeon in on weekends to fix me up
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u/LowMolasses5658 1d ago
I drive to the Va or PA. That is the only way. Way better treatment, quicker, friendlier.
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u/Adventurous-Tap-7418 1d ago
Someone tried to buy that place behind Walmart and FMH bought it to keep them out. You don't even see an actual doctor unless you're impatient 2-3 days. We drive out of state to an actual hospital with qualified doctors and no wait.
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u/RavenGunnerMD 1d ago edited 1d ago
It needs to happen. Unfortunately, the State of Maryland has very strict regulations around building more hospitals (and even expanding existing hospitals). It seems like the bureaucracy here is very counter-productive. FMH is horribly busy and makes working there quite difficult at times. I think it creates a vicious cycle of not being able to retain and recruit professionals well too. Just pray you don’t get any further expansion of Meritus into this area - horrible, horrible organization.