Doctors are among the most highly paid, educated and celebrated professions in the United States. Just consider the fact that “physician” is the most popular professionwithin the top 1% of earners. Doctors are deserving, after all, given the importance of their life-saving work and all of the struggles associated with life in the medical profession.
Not only does the average med school graduate leave campus with roughly $176K in debt, but the medical profession has also been undergoing intense changes in recent years. The Affordable Care Act, the rise of branded hospital networks, the impending retirement of Baby Boomers and an increasingly litigious society are all complicating the lives of doctors and providing pause to potential white-coats.
With all of this being said, it’s fair to expect a certain measure of difference in terms of the working environments faced by doctors across the country. And, in order to help U.S. doctors make the most informed decisions regarding where to live and work, as well as to help local governments identify policy initiatives, WalletHub compared each of the 50 states and the District of Columbia along 12 key metrics designed to identify 2015’s Best & Worst States for Doctors.
Overall Rank State Opportunity & Competition Rank Work Environment Rank
1 South Carolina 8 3
2 Minnesota 26 1
3 Texas 6 5
4 Mississippi 1 22
5 Kansas 3 9
6 Wisconsin 31 2
7 Tennessee 2 15
8 Iowa 4 14
9 Idaho 12 4
10 North Dakota 9 16
11 Michigan 11 20
12 Alabama 17 12
13 Arkansas 21 10
14 California 25 8
15 Indiana 15 25
16 Florida 14 26
17 Nebraska 5 38
18 Montana 27 11
19 Virginia 28 17
20 South Dakota 10 38
21 Missouri 30 19
22 North Carolina 29 18
23 Georgia 33 21
24 Oklahoma 16 36
25 Nevada 46 5
26 Ohio 22 31
27 Louisiana 18 37
28 Massachusetts 35 23
29 Wyoming 7 51
30 Vermont 41 7
31 Pennsylvania 20 40
32 Colorado 32 35
33 Illinois 19 47
34 New Mexico 23 42
35 Kentucky 24 45
36 West Virginia 13 49
37 Utah 44 13
38 Hawaii 37 34
39 Washington 39 31
40 D.C. 45 28
41 Arizona 34 43
42 New Hampshire 42 29
43 Delaware 36 44
44 Alaska 38 45
45 Connecticut 48 27
46 Maryland 47 41
47 Maine 43 48
48 New York 40 50
49 Oregon 51 24
50 New Jersey 50 31
51 Rhode Island 49 30
Ask the Experts: The Future of the Medical Profession
Medicine is changing rapidly, and the manner in which it is taught and practiced must adapt accordingly. The industry faces not only an aging population as well as new regulations, but it must also keep pace with technological breakthroughs and make sense of hospital reorganization and rebranding. With that in mind, we sought insight from medical professionals, business experts and public policy researchers into the future of the medical profession.
You can check out our panel as well as the questions we asked them, below.
What are the biggest issues facing doctors today?
How does state and local policy influence the lives of doctors and other medical professionals?
How can localities attract more primary care physicians?
What tips can you offer current medical students about what specialty to pursue and where?
Oregon doctors are among the 5 states with the lowest physician wage disparities.
This speaks volumes to what we might learn from the All Payer All Claims database. Very profitable insurance companies seem to be doing quite well with a take-it-or-leave-it approach to paying doctors in Oregon--whether paid though fee-for-service or global budgets.
The APAC should disclose the negotiated prices between insurance companies and hospitals/doctors. If not, we should pull the plug on the Oregon Health Authority's giveaway to Milliman Inc. The OHA pays them with our tax dollars to hoard confidential data--like diagnostic codes, our names, our doctors and the price paid. This is information uploaded by payers (i.e. health plans) without our consent.
Milliman Inc. is one of the top purchasers of health data. Their high paying clients include hospitals and insurance companies who are interested in a bottom line: profit. Never mind that business executives can make million dollar incomes and call their hospital a "nonprofit." It's all about cost-shifting, of course.
Growing income inequality indicates that this shifting is going up the economic ladder from both the pockets of underpaid doctors (particularly primary care) and patients.
We need to eliminate the trade secret protections insurance companies claim they should have to obfuscate "allowed" prices of health care. And if neither the OHA nor the legislators stop these trade secrets, we should get rid of the APAC so Milliman Inc. doesn't have our confidential information.
Kris Alman