Processing Your Payment

Please do not leave this page until complete. This can take a few moments.

March 17, 2020

Heal thyself: Survey ranks CT among worst states for MDs

PHOTO | Pixabay.com
By Michael C. Bingham

Quite a time to be a medical practitioner, no? Being a member of the healing profession during an unprecedented global pandemic is a little like being a leprechaun when a rainbow appears.

Yes? No? It depends. With doctors on the front lines against the threat of coronavirus, National Doctors’ Day (who knew?) coming up on March 30 and “physician” being the highest-paid U.S. occupation in 2019, the personal-finance website WalletHub on Monday released its report on “2020’s Best & Worst States for Doctors.”

To identify the best and not-as-best states for those in the business of saving lives, WalletHub compared the 50 states plus the District of Columbia across 19 metrics, from average annual wages of physicians to hospitals per capita to the quality of the public hospital system.

Based on measurements such as those, you would think Connecticut would rank high among places to be a health-care “provider.” And, according to WalletHub, you would be (mostly) wrong.

Overall, the Nutmeg State ranked just 49th (of 51, counting D.C.) in the nation among places to practice medicine. Only Rhode Island and New York ranked worse.

Connecticut is a high-income (and high-cost!) state, and MD a highly paid profession. But adjusted for cost of living, the average annual wage of doctors here ranks only 44th in the nation. Even worse, the average monthly starting salary for newly minted MDs ranked just 47th in the U.S.

Some other key metrics:

  •  Connecticut ranked 40th in the nation in hospitals per capita.
  • We rank 45th in projected number of practicing physicians per capita by 2026 (they’ll be playing golf every Wednesday in Myrtle Beach).
  • Connecticut ranks 49th in per-capita malpractice award payouts (that reflects the highest payouts — good, maybe, for the “capitas” but bad for MDs and especially their insurance premiums, which WalletHub ranked 28th highest in the U.S.).

Also according to the survey, Connecticut’s highest ranking was No. 22 in the nation for “medical environment,” which doubtless reflects the presence of prominent academic and medical research institutions clustered in places like New Haven.

Oh, and the best state to be a physician, according to WalletHub? The state that perhaps least resembles No. 51, New York. That would be...Montana.

The full WalletHub report may be viewed HERE.

Sign up for Enews

Most Recent

Most Recent

0 Comments

Order a PDF