Basis of Presentation (Policies)	6 Months Ended
Basis of Presentation (Policies)	Jun. 30, 2011
Basis of Presentation (Policies) [Abstract]
Stock-Based Compensation Policy	Stock-Based Compensation— In February 2011, we issued 0.7 million of restricted stock awards to members of our management team and our board of directors. The majority of these awards are shares of restricted stock that contain a service and either a performance or market condition. For these awards, the number of shares that will ultimately be granted to employees may vary based on the Company’s performance during the applicable performance measurement period. Additionally, we granted 0.2 million stock options to members of our management team. The fair value of these awards and options were determined using the policies described in the 2010 Form 10-K. In May 2011, our shareholders approved the Amended and Restated 2008 Equity Incentive Plan, which reserves and provides for the grant of up to 9.0 million shares of common stock.
Recent Accounting Pronouncements	Recent Accounting Pronouncements— In June 2011, the Financial Accounting Standards Board (the “FASB”) amended its guidance governing the presentation of comprehensive income. The amended guidance eliminates the option to report other comprehensive income and its components in the statement of changes in equity. Under the new guidance, an entity can elect to present items of net income and other comprehensive income in one continuous statement — referred to as the statement of comprehensive income — or in two separate, but consecutive, statements. While the options for presenting other comprehensive income change under the guidance, other portions of the current guidance will not change. For public entities, these changes are effective for fiscal years, and interim periods within those years, beginning after December 15, 2011. Early adoption is permitted. We implemented this guidance effective with our reporting as of and for the three and six months ended June 30, 2010 by moving our condensed consolidated statements of comprehensive income to immediately follow our condensed consolidated statements of operations. This guidance had no other impact on the Company. In July 2011, the FASB ratified the final consensus reached by the Emerging Issues Task Force related to the presentation and disclosure of net revenue, the provision for bad debts, and the allowance for doubtful accounts of healthcare entities. This standard retains the existing revenue recognition model for healthcare entities, pending further developments in the FASB’s revenue recognition project. However, this standard requires the Provision for doubtful accounts associated with patient service revenue to be separately displayed on the face of the statement of operations as a component of net revenue. This standard also requires enhanced disclosures of significant changes in estimates related to patient bad debts. While this standard will have no net impact on our financial position, results of operations, or cash flows, it will require us to reclassify our Provision for doubtful accounts from operating expenses to a component of Net operating revenues beginning with the first quarter of 2012, with retrospective application required.
Reclassifications	Reclassifications— On May 17, 2011, we entered into a definitive agreement with certain subsidiaries of LifeCare Holdings, Inc. (collectively, the “Buyer”), pursuant to which we agreed to sell, and the Buyer agreed to acquire, substantially all of the assets of all six of our long-term acute care hospitals (“LTCHs”) for approximately $120 million, consisting of cash and retained working capital. On July 21, 2011, HealthSouth and the Buyer amended the definitive agreement to remove HealthSouth Hospital of Houston (the “Houston LTCH”) from the sale transaction and reduce the aggregate purchase price by $2.5 million to $117.5 million. HealthSouth expects to close the Houston LTCH in the third quarter of 2011 and sell the associated real estate. Accordingly, we reclassified our condensed consolidated balance sheet as of December 31, 2010 to present the assets and liabilities of all six of our LTCHs as held for sale. We also reclassified our condensed consolidated statements of operations and condensed consolidated statements of cash flows for the 2010 periods presented to include these facilities and their results of operations as discontinued operations. The transaction to sell five of our LTCHs was completed on August 1, 2011. See Note 7, Assets Held for Sale and Results of Discontinued Operations.