Hotels Near Major Hospitals: Where to Stay for Medical Visits

Before you book a hotel, check whether you need one

If you are reading this, someone is having treatment. The most useful thing we can tell you is this: at every one of the seven hospitals below there is free or heavily subsidised housing, and most people do not find out about it until after they have paid for several nights of hotels.

These programs are not a last resort for people with no money. They are run by the hospitals and by national charities, they are often purpose-built for long treatment stays with kitchens and laundry, and they usually cost nothing. The catch is that almost all of them require a referral from your care team, and several have waiting lists — so the call to make first is not to a hotel.

At St. Jude this matters more than anywhere: families whose child needs overnight treatment and who live more than 35 miles away receive free housing for up to five family members, and no bill for treatment, travel, housing or food. Call the housing case manager on 901-595-2426 before you book anything.

Free and low-cost housing, by hospital

Hope Lodge, which appears at five of the seven, is free for patients in active outpatient cancer treatment plus one caregiver, by referral. Ronald McDonald House serves families of children, usually with a distance requirement — RMHC Maryland asks that families live 25 or more miles away.

Two warnings worth reading before you rely on this. Johns Hopkins states plainly that its lower-cost housing often has waiting lists with no advance confirmation, that some properties do not accept children, and that some limit the number of rooms per family. And at St. Jude, the campus is gated and visitors must be invited and pre-registered by a host — so hotels there are mainly for grandparents, siblings and friends beyond the five-person housing allowance.

Patient rates: ask, and call the hotel directly

Where free housing is not available or not a fit, most of these hospitals have negotiated discounted hotel rates. The important mechanic: these rates usually do not appear on booking sites, and a hotel may not honour a negotiated patient rate on a third-party booking. Johns Hopkins says this explicitly. Call the hotel directly and say you are a patient or family member.

Memorial Sloan Kettering publishes the most specific list we found, and it works differently from the others — most of the MSK savings come from waived resort and facility fees rather than lower room rates. The Gardens Sonesta ES Suites waives its facility fee for MSK guests; The Benjamin Royal Sonesta waives its resort fee with promo code MSKDP. Helmsley Medical Tower uses MSK corporate code 3093281, and Hilton Garden Inn Manhattan Midtown East uses N3093281.

Cleveland Clinic’s on-campus hotels take a different approach again, with discounted rates tied to length: both the InterContinental Suites and the Holiday Inn offer reduced rates at 5+ and 30+ nights, which suits a treatment schedule far better than a nightly rate.

Dana-Farber runs its own Patient Lodging Program, with a limited number of fixed-rate rooms for adult patients at the Homewood Suites by Hilton Boston/Brookline — 617-632-3344, or DFCIPatientLodging@dfci.harvard.edu. Their Adult Resource Office on 617-632-3301 holds the full lodging list.

The one hospital where you can stay indoors

Mayo Clinic in Rochester is the only campus here where you can get from your hotel room to your appointment without going outside. Downtown hotels connect to the Mayo and Gonda buildings through heated and cooled skyways and an underground subway system, at 0–0.2 miles. In a Minnesota winter, during treatment, that is not a luxury.

The Kahler Grand Hotel has a climate-controlled underground walkway to Mayo. For longer stays the Residence Inn Rochester Mayo Clinic Area has full kitchens plus subway and skyway access, which is the best combination of the two things long-stay families need.

Elsewhere, indoor connections are rarer and more limited. At MD Anderson, only the Rotary House connects, by enclosed skybridge — it is owned by MD Anderson, managed by Marriott, and has accessible rooms with roll-in showers. At Cleveland Clinic, the InterContinental Hotel Cleveland connects by an enclosed walkway, and the guide names it the most convenient choice for patients with limited mobility. At St. Jude, The Domino’s Village is linked to campus by a sky bridge — but that is hospital housing, not a hotel.

Shuttles: free at six of seven, but check the hours

Nearly every hospital here runs or is served by a free shuttle, and the hours are the thing that catches people out — many hotel shuttles run weekdays only, which is no help for a Saturday admission.

• Mayo runs a free shuttle between downtown and Saint Marys about every 15 minutes, and says nearly all area hotels offer free shuttle service to campus, many on weekdays only.
• MD Anderson runs free patient shuttles between its buildings weekdays 6am–7pm. The Hampton Inn & Suites Houston Medical Center runs weekdays 6:15am–10pm and weekends 10:15am–5:45pm — one of the few with weekend cover.
• Cleveland Clinic provides complimentary wheelchair-capable, on-demand and curbside shuttle service, serving the InterContinental, InterContinental Suites and Holiday Inn. The RTA HealthLine on Euclid Avenue runs 24/7, every 7–10 minutes on weekday daytimes — useful for very early or very late appointments.
• Johns Hopkins runs a free shuttle from Penn Station to the East Baltimore campus; drivers may ask for a Hopkins ID or appointment letter.
• Dana-Farber is served by a free weekday shuttle from the Homewood Suites Boston/Brookline.
• MSK runs a free shuttle from the City Parking garage at 425 E 61st St to 1275 York Avenue, about every 20 minutes at peak.
• St. Jude runs a free shuttle between St. Jude housing and the hospital. We found no hotel running a shuttle there, so plan a short drive or rideshare.

Parking: the cost nobody budgets for

On a six-week treatment schedule, parking is a real expense, and every one of these hospitals offers a multi-visit pass that most people never ask about.

• Mayo: $2 first hour then $1/hour, $12/day max. Passes at $25 for 5 days, $40 for 10, $75 for 25.
• Cleveland Clinic: first hour free, up to $12/day. Passes at $36 for 7 visits or $120 for 35. Valet $14/day, capped at $70 for 5+ days.
• Johns Hopkins: $5 up to an hour, $15/day max. Discount stamp books at $35 for 5 or $70 for 10 — about $7 per exit.
• MD Anderson: $5 up to an hour, $19 per 24 hours max in Garages 2 and 10; Mays Clinic and Duncan $3–13. Prepaid value passes: $52 buys $60, $100 buys $115.
• Dana-Farber: patient rates with validation — first hour free, $7 to 1.5 hours, $8 to 2, $10 to 3, $12 for 3–24 hours.
• MSK: 15% off at the City Parking garage at 425 E 61st St, where posted rates run from $19 for an hour to $50 for 24 hours.
• St. Jude: free valet for patients, weekdays 5:30am–11pm via N. Lauderdale Street, plus self-parking with a security-issued tag.

Over twenty visits, the Hopkins stamp book saves roughly $160 against the daily maximum. It is the kind of thing nobody mentions at the front desk.

Long stays: look for a kitchen

If treatment runs for weeks, a kitchen changes the economics and often the diet. Every hospital here has at least one full-kitchen option nearby: the Residence Inn at Mayo, Candlewood Suites Houston Medical Center at about three miles for MD Anderson (the guide names it best value for long treatment stays), the Residence Inn Cleveland University Circle at a ten-minute walk, the Residence Inn at the Johns Hopkins Medical Campus on North Wolfe Street, Homewood Suites Boston/Brookline for Dana-Farber, and Helmsley Medical Tower for MSK — which takes patients, families and vendors of local hospitals only.

St. Jude’s own Target House goes further: 98 furnished two-bedroom apartments with full kitchens and cookware, free laundry on each floor, grab-and-go breakfast on weekdays and catered suppers twice a week. It is free.

Who to call first

Each hospital has a team whose job is exactly this. Mayo Clinic Concierge Services, 507-538-8438, and Patient Travel Services, 866-551-3392. MD Anderson Patient Travel Services, 713-745-2300 or 888-848-9992, which also arranges discounted car rentals and flights. Cleveland Clinic’s Medical Concierge team, 216.444.2200. Johns Hopkins accommodations, accommodations@jhmi.edu. Dana-Farber’s Adult Resource Office, 617-632-3301. MSK’s Bobst International Center, 212-639-4900. St. Jude Patient Services, 901-595-4501.

How we put this together

Every figure and phone number here comes from one of our seven hospital guides, which take parking rates, shuttle hours, program eligibility and contact details from each hospital’s own published pages and from the charities named. Programs and rates change, and eligibility rules in particular are decided by the hospital, not by us — always confirm with the team above.

We are not a medical organisation and nothing here is medical advice. We earn a commission if you book a hotel through our links, at no extra cost to you. It does not affect what we recommend, and it is the reason the free housing programs come first on this page: they earn us nothing, and for most families they are the right answer. See our affiliate disclosure.