Healthcare & Safety in Payson
Payson has real, recently-upgraded local hospital access through Banner Payson Medical Center, and crime data reads favorably on FBI-derived measures -- though NeighborhoodScout's own framing is more cautious, and CrimeGrade's cited grade was internally inconsistent in this session's research.
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Learn moreA recently-upgraded, 5-star-rated local hospital
Banner Payson Medical Center is a 25-bed critical access hospital providing inpatient, outpatient, diagnostic, imaging, medical, surgical, and emergency care. It recently earned a 5-star overall CMS rating -- a designation only about 8% of hospitals nationwide receive -- up from a prior 2-star rating, a real, dated quality improvement worth knowing about directly. Patient-recommendation figures disagree by source (90% per U.S. News versus 74% per Healthgrades, a real, disclosed spread), and the hospital has been a three-time Thomson Reuters 100 Top Hospitals recipient.
Crime data reads favorably on FBI-derived figures, more cautiously elsewhere
FBI-derived data puts Payson's total crime rate at 1,484.1 per 100,000 -- about 30% below the national rate and 33% below Arizona's -- and violent crime at 261.2 per 100,000, about 27% below national and 38% below Arizona's. NeighborhoodScout, however, frames Payson as 'not one of the safest communities in America' by raw victimization odds (1-in-67 overall), while also noting it reads near-average against similarly-sized communities specifically. CrimeGrade.org's own citation was internally inconsistent in this session's search results -- one figure cites an A- overall grade for 2026, another cites a B+ grade at the 72nd percentile -- both real citations from the same source, disclosed here as an unreconciled discrepancy rather than resolved to one grade.
Key takeaways
- Banner Payson Medical Center (25-bed critical access hospital) recently earned a 5-star CMS rating, up from a prior 2-star rating -- a real, dated quality improvement.
- Patient-recommendation rates disagree by source: 90% (U.S. News) vs. 74% (Healthgrades) -- a real, disclosed spread.
- FBI-derived crime data reads favorably (total crime ~30% below national, violent crime ~27% below national), though NeighborhoodScout's own framing is more cautious and CrimeGrade's cited grade was internally inconsistent this session (A- vs. B+/72nd percentile).
- Confirm current, address-specific crime data directly before relocating, given how differently sources characterize Payson's overall risk.
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