OBJECTIVES:  The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Hospital Compare website provides information about the quality of care at over 4,000 Medicare-certified hospitals nationwide. One of the goals for these data is to encourage hospitals to improve the quality of care they provide. The purpose of this research was to examine the Hospital Compare database HCAHPS Patient Survey to observe trends in patient satisfaction with care over time. METHODS: We accessed HCAHPS Patient Survey data from 2011-2014. Patients rate their overall satisfaction on a scale from 0 (lowest) to 10 (highest). We defined the lowest ranking hospitals as those with the highest percentage of patients rating their hospital a score of 6 or lower. Low ranking hospitals were tracked for four years to observe trends in overall satisfaction. A subgroup analysis was performed on select hospitals to determine whether any specific survey components contributed to overall improvement in satisfaction with care. RESULTS:  In 2011, there were 3,572 hospitals with reported data on HCAHPS scores. In the lowest 30 ranking hospitals, 22% to 33% of patients gave their hospital a rating of 6 or lower. Of these hospitals, 25 had data available in 2011-2014 to follow trends. Of the hospitals examined, 21 showed improved patient satisfaction in 2012. Of these 21 hospitals, 18 improved further in 2013 and 10 improved even further in 2014. Only two hospitals showed a downward trend in patient satisfaction from 2011 to 2014. CONCLUSIONS:  When examining a publicly available, self-reported database, the majority of hospitals with low rates of patient satisfaction in the initial year then had higher patient satisfaction in subsequent years. These trends indicate that hospitals modify their behavior to increase patient satisfaction, though more research is needed to determine what other factors impact patient satisfaction scores over time.