Nearly one in three physicians plans to leave their current organization within two years. For those weighing their next move, location is one of the biggest variables. Marit's analysis of the top metros for physicians finds the sweet spot and puts some data behind that decision.
Minneapolis-St. Paul ranked first for physicians in Marit's analysis across specialties. Dallas-Fort Worth and Portland, Oregon came in second and third, depending on the specialty. No other city consistently made the top three.
The analysis compared five specialties – Anesthesiology, Emergency Medicine, Internal Medicine, Pediatrics, and Radiology – across six dimensions: physician pay, medical liability insurance premiums, housing costs, commute times, family friendliness, and local health and fitness. Here's what the data shows:
- Minneapolis-St. Paul was the top ranked metro area for all five specialties. It ranked well for compensation, commutes, insurance costs and family friendliness but was middle of the pack when it came to housing affordability and health and fitness opportunities.
- Dallas-Fort Worth and Portland, Oregon trade places for the second and third highest spots. Dallas generally outranked Portland when it comes to salaries and housing affordability, but at the cost of longer commutes and lower health and fitness scores. The two metros were mostly similar in terms of insurance premiums and family friendliness.
- Further down the list, Richmond, Virginia is a surprise contender, especially for pediatrics and radiology. Short commutes, good housing affordability, and reasonable insurance premiums put Richmond on par with metros like Seattle, Chicago and Washington, D.C. despite generally lower salaries.
- Boston generally rounds out the bottom of the top ten rankings, penalized for long commutes and high insurance premiums despite high salaries.
For physicians with flexibility on location, the data makes a clear case, and Minneapolis earns its top ranking. Strong compensation, below-average malpractice premiums, short commutes, and high marks for family friendliness (the factors that hit a physician's schedule and bottom line most directly) all point in the same direction.
Methodology
To rank metros for each medical specialty, we compiled data from the following sources:
- Median full-time equivalent salaries from Marit Health salary and job listings data for full-time, experienced (3+ years), employee (W-2), non-academic physicians.
- Median home values at the metro level published by Zillow.
- Median commute times at the metro level published by the U.S. Census Bureau's American Community Survey (ACS).
- Estimates of state-level medical liability insurance premiums, based on total premiums earned published by the National Association of Insurance Commissioners divided by the total number of practicing physicians in the state published by the Kaiser Family Foundation.
- City level family friendliness and health and fitness rankings published by Marit Health and population-weighted at the metro level.
For each of the categories, we ranked the metros within each specialty and then computed an average rank. That rescaled average rank is presented above.
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