[1] It was the largest provider of general hospital healthcare services in the United States in terms of number of acute care facilities.

[14] In 2000, Community Health Systems paid $31 million to the United States Department of Justice to settle a review of its billing practices.

[24] The acquisition of HMA brought with it liability for lawsuits and criminal charges of fraudulent claims against Medicare and other federal programs.

[25] On August 4, 2014, Community Health Systems paid $95.14 million to the United States Department of Justice to resolve multiple lawsuits "alleging that the company knowingly billed government health care programs for inpatient services that should have been billed as outpatient or observation services".

[27] On February 2, 2015, Community Health Systems was required to pay $75 million to settle allegations "that they made illegal donations to county governments to reap more federal dollars under a now-discontinued matching program".

[29] In October 2015, Community Health Systems paid $13 million to the United States Department of Justice to resolve allegations related to the False Claims Act.

[33][34] On December 6, 2016, a former CFO of a CHS hospital was awarded $1.9 million in a whistleblower lawsuit he filed after he was terminated for refusing to submit false financial documents.

Key prominent local community leaders Chuck Surack and Tom Kelley resigned from the Lutheran Health Network's and hospitals' advisory boards.

[41] On August 1, 2018, CHS completed the sale of 425-bed Munroe Regional Medical Center in Ocala, Fla., to Altamonte Springs, Fla.-based Adventist Health System.

[43] In December 2019, CHS announced that subsidiaries of the company have completed the sale of three Virginia hospitals – Southside Regional Medical Center in Petersburg, Southampton Memorial Hospital in Franklin, and Southern Virginia Regional Medical Center in Emporia, effective on January 1, 2020.

[45] On April 27, 2020, CHS announced that an affiliate of the company has signed a definitive agreement to sell its majority ownership interest in 84‑bed St.

[5] From March 2020 to May 2021 – during the COVID-19 pandemic – CHS filed more than 19,000 lawsuits against individuals for not being able to pay off their medical debt (some from hospitals it no longer owned) even as the company collected over $700 million in Covid relief funds from the federal government.