“Charleston has great hospitals” is true and also not very useful if you’re deciding between Del Webb Nexton and Del Webb Cane Bay. Both communities get lumped into “Charleston-area healthcare” in most marketing, but they sit in different counties, and the honest answer to “what hospital is closest to me” changes community by community. This guide breaks it down by the four counties the Charleston 55+ market actually spans — Dorchester, Berkeley, Charleston, and Jasper — and flags the places where hospital names are more confusing than they should be. We verified every system named here; where ownership or naming is genuinely ambiguous or in transition, we say so rather than guess.
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Talk to a Specialist →Dorchester County — Summerville: Del Webb Nexton, Horizons at Summers Corner, Cresswind Charleston, Hammock Walk at Nexton, The Pines at Gahagan, The Elms of Charleston
Summerville has more hospital options within a short drive than any other part of this market, which is one of the underappreciated advantages of the Dorchester County communities. Three different systems operate full-service or near-full-service facilities in or immediately around Summerville.
What’s Actually in Summerville
HCA Healthcare Summerville Hospital (part of the Trident Health system): A full-service HCA-owned hospital in Summerville, operating as a sister facility to Trident Medical Center in North Charleston under the same Trident Health system umbrella. This is the hospital most often just called “Summerville Medical Center” in casual conversation and older directories — the underlying HCA/Trident ownership hasn’t changed, only the public-facing branding has been updated in places.
Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital: Despite the name, this Roper St. Francis Healthcare hospital is physically located in Summerville — not in Moncks Corner, which is the actual seat of Berkeley County. We flag this explicitly because it is a genuine source of confusion: a buyer assuming “Berkeley Hospital” sits in Berkeley County’s namesake town would be wrong. It is a Summerville-based hospital that carries the county’s name.
MUSC Health Nexton Medical Park: MUSC’s current Summerville presence is a medical park with an emergency/urgent care component and outpatient clinics, located in the Nexton development itself — convenient for Del Webb Nexton and Hammock Walk at Nexton residents specifically. MUSC broke ground on a full inpatient hospital in Nexton in September 2025. As of this writing that hospital is under construction, not yet operating as a full inpatient facility — confirm current status and services before assuming it functions as a complete hospital.
For anything beyond routine care — a cardiac catheterization lab, a Level I trauma center, transplant services — Summerville residents are looking at a roughly 25–35 minute drive into North Charleston (Trident Medical Center) or downtown Charleston (MUSC Health University Medical Center, Roper Hospital). That’s a real factor for anyone managing a serious chronic condition, even though day-to-day and urgent care is well covered in Summerville itself.
Berkeley County — Cane Bay: Del Webb at Cane Bay, Four Seasons at Lakes of Cane Bay, Carillon at The Ponds
This is the county where the naming confusion above matters most in practice. Cane Bay sits in Berkeley County, and a buyer researching “hospitals near Cane Bay” will likely find references to “Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital” and reasonably assume it’s the local option. It is genuinely close — but it’s in Summerville, functionally the same drive Dorchester County residents make, not a hospital sitting inside Berkeley County’s own borders near Moncks Corner.
Practically speaking, this means Cane Bay buyers should evaluate healthcare access the same way Summerville buyers do: HCA Healthcare Summerville Hospital, Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital (in Summerville), and MUSC Health’s Nexton-area presence are all a comparable short drive, with North Charleston and downtown Charleston hospitals available for higher-acuity needs a bit further out. The lower property tax rate that makes Berkeley County attractive (covered in our Berkeley County property tax guide) doesn’t come with a healthcare-access tradeoff worth worrying about — the hospitals are simply named after the county rather than sitting inside its main town.
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Charleston County — Point Hope (Cainhoy) and Encore at Carolina Park (Mount Pleasant)
Charleston County communities have the shortest hospital drives in this market, but the county also has the most active ownership changes to track — two separate transitions are worth understanding before you assume any single hospital name is stable long-term.
Downtown Charleston — Closest to Del Webb Point Hope
MUSC Health University Medical Center (Charleston Medical Center): The Medical University of South Carolina’s academic hospital on Ashley Avenue in downtown Charleston — the deepest specialty and trauma capability in the region, and roughly the closest full academic center to Del Webb Point Hope in Cainhoy of any community in this market.
Roper Hospital (downtown, Calhoun Street): Historically operated by Roper St. Francis Healthcare. In August 2024, Roper St. Francis announced a planned future sale of this Calhoun Street campus to MUSC. Depending on when you’re reading this, that transaction may be pending, in progress, or already completed — confirm the current operator directly rather than assuming either name applies. This is exactly the kind of ownership detail that can go stale in any static guide.
Mount Pleasant — Closest to Encore at Carolina Park
Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant Hospital: Located on Highway 17 North in Mount Pleasant, this is a distinct Roper St. Francis facility from both the downtown Roper Hospital and the Summerville-based “Berkeley” hospital — three separate Roper St. Francis hospitals across the metro, easy to conflate if you’re skimming.
Novant Health East Cooper Medical Center: A second Mount Pleasant hospital, on Hospital Drive. Formerly a Tenet Healthcare facility, it was acquired by Novant Health in a February 2024 deal covering three Lowcountry hospitals. Encore at Carolina Park residents effectively have two full-service hospitals in Mount Pleasant to choose between, under two different systems.
Point Hope is the newest, most active-build community in the Charleston metro, and it markets its proximity to downtown as a core selling point — that proximity is real and it does mean a genuinely short drive to MUSC’s academic center. Encore at Carolina Park, similarly, benefits from Mount Pleasant’s two-hospital market in a way none of the Summerville or Cane Bay communities can match.
Jasper County — Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head (Hardeeville)
Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head sits in Hardeeville, near the South Carolina/Georgia border and roughly an hour south of the Charleston hospitals covered above — a genuinely separate healthcare market from the rest of this guide, closer in practice to the Hilton Head/Bluffton medical corridor than to Charleston.
Hardeeville’s Hospital, In Transition
Coastal Carolina Medical Center (Novant Health): Located in Hardeeville, this hospital was formerly operated as “Coastal Carolina Hospital” under Tenet Healthcare. It was one of three South Carolina hospitals Novant Health acquired from Tenet in a $2.4 billion deal that closed in February 2024. You may still see the older “Coastal Carolina Hospital” name in some directories, reviews, and older web pages — the facility and its ownership are the same, just rebranded under Novant Health.
Hilton Head Hospital (Novant Health): The second former-Tenet, now-Novant hospital from the same 2024 deal, located on Hilton Head Island itself — a further drive from Hardeeville than Coastal Carolina Medical Center, but relevant for more specialized care. Novant Health has also announced plans for a new medical campus on Hilton Head Island; that project was in a land-purchase/planning stage as of the most recent reporting, not yet an operating facility.
For Latitude Margaritaville residents, Coastal Carolina Medical Center is the practical answer to “what’s my nearest hospital,” with Hilton Head Hospital and, further out, the Savannah, GA hospital systems as backup options for specialty care. Because this community sits furthest from the Charleston hub of this guide, we’d encourage anyone touring Latitude Margaritaville to ask directly about current in-network status with their Medicare Advantage plan, since the 2024 ownership change can affect network agreements independent of the physical hospital itself.
Summary: Hospital Systems by County
| County | Communities | Nearest Hospital(s) | System | What to Verify |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Dorchester | Del Webb Nexton, Horizons Summers Corner, Cresswind Charleston, Hammock Walk Nexton, Pines at Gahagan, The Elms | HCA Healthcare Summerville Hospital; Roper St. Francis Berkeley Hospital; MUSC Health Nexton Medical Park | Trident Health (HCA); Roper St. Francis; MUSC Health | MUSC’s Nexton hospital is under construction (groundbreaking Sept. 2025) — confirm if it’s open |
| Berkeley | Del Webb Cane Bay, Four Seasons Lakes of Cane Bay, Carillon at The Ponds | Same Summerville hospitals as Dorchester; Moncks Corner has ER/outpatient only | Trident Health (HCA); Roper St. Francis | “Berkeley Hospital” is in Summerville, not Moncks Corner — don’t assume it’s in-county |
| Charleston | Del Webb Point Hope, Encore at Carolina Park | MUSC Health University Medical Center & Roper Hospital (downtown); Roper St. Francis Mount Pleasant Hospital & Novant Health East Cooper (Mt. Pleasant) | MUSC Health; Roper St. Francis; Novant Health | Roper Hospital’s downtown campus sale to MUSC was announced Aug. 2024 — confirm current operator |
| Jasper | Latitude Margaritaville Hilton Head (Hardeeville) | Coastal Carolina Medical Center (Hardeeville); Hilton Head Hospital | Novant Health (formerly Tenet Healthcare, acquired Feb. 2024) | Confirm current Medicare Advantage in-network status post-acquisition |
The honest takeaway across all four counties: no community in this market is genuinely far from adequate hospital care, but the specific name of “your” hospital, and who owns it, has been unusually unstable here over the past two years. Whichever community you’re considering, the highest-value single step is a direct call to the hospital nearest you (or your Medicare Advantage plan) to confirm current ownership, in-network status, and service lines — not relying on any one article, including this one, as a permanent record.