Business	9 Months Ended
Sep. 30, 2011
Business [Abstract]
Business	1. Business Health Care REIT, Inc., an S&P 500 company with headquarters in Toledo, Ohio, is an equity real estate investment trust (“REIT”) that invests in seniors housing and health care real estate. Our full service platform also offers property management and development services to our customers. As of September 30, 2011, our broadly diversified portfolio consisted of 898 properties in 45 states. Founded in 1970, we were the first real estate investment trust to invest exclusively in health care facilities. More information is available on our website at www.hcreit.com.

Describes the nature of an entity's business, the major products or services it sells or provides and its principal markets, including the locations of those markets. If the entity operates in more than one business, the disclosure also indicates the relative importance of its operations in each business and the basis for the determination (for example, assets, revenues, or earnings). Disclosures about the nature of operations need not be quantified; relative importance could be conveyed by use of terms such as "predominately", "about equally", or "major and other". This element is also referred to as "Business Description".

Reference 1: http://www.xbrl.org/2003/role/presentationRef

-Publisher AICPA

-Name Statement of Position (SOP)

-Number 94-6

-Paragraph 10

Name:	us-gaap_NatureOfOperations
Namespace Prefix:	us-gaap
Data Type:	us-types:textBlockItemType
Balance Type:	na
Period Type:	duration