The federal government may or may not believe in global warming, but when it comes to states’ medical practice climates, Iowa trumps them all, according to the personal finance website WalletHub.
The Hawkeye State came out on top of WalletHub’s list of the Best States to Practice Medicine for 2017 with 68.7 out of a possible 100 points, while New York finished 51st (Washington, D.C., was 50th) with 28.5 points. Minnesota is the second-best state for physicians, followed by Idaho, Wisconsin, and Kansas. The rest of the bottom five included New Jersey at 49th, Maryland at 48th, and Rhode Island at 47th, WalletHub reported.
The ranking favors the West and Midwest, with 15 of the top 20 states located left of the Mississippi, while all of the New England and Mid-Atlantic states are ranked below 30th, the analysis shows.
WalletHub compared the 50 states and Washington using 14 different metrics across two broad categories: “opportunity and competition” (70 points) and “medical environment” (30 points). Metrics included physicians’ average annual wage (adjusted for cost of living), hospitals per capita, quality of public hospital system, and annual malpractice liability insurance rate.
