Key Takeaways
- Physicians are relocating from the Northeast to the South and West at high rates, Marit Health reports.
- More than half of doctors with at least 20 years of experience are moving to lower-paying states.
- In addition to compensation, physicians are basing decisions on population growth, cost of living and operating environments.
AI-assisted summary, editor reviewed
Explore more:
Physicians Staffing
Ask Modern Healthcare Answers your own question:
Physicians are increasingly moving to some of the fastest-growing states, according to a data analysis conducted for Modern Healthcare.
A significant percentage of doctors moved from the Northeast to the Southeast and the West from mid-2025 to mid-2026, according to a review of job-search records from Marit Health, which aggregates clinician salary information.
Related: How easing state oversight spurred a construction ‘arms race’
California, Florida, Colorado, Georgia, North Carolina and Washington attracted the most physicians relative to the number who left over that span. New York, Pennsylvania, Virginia, Indiana, Michigan and Iowa experienced the greatest outflows.
The data suggest doctors are choosing to work in areas where demand for care is growing faster than clinician supply. Physicians are often looking for favorable climates, affordable cost of living and high patient volumes, doctors said.
“Physicians are leaving high-cost, physician-saturated markets of the East Coast for the population growth of the South and West. These states have a relative undersupply of physicians, but favorable financial and lifestyle options,” said Dr. James Toussaint, an orthopedic surgeon in Gainesville, Florida. “Florida is bursting at the seams.”
Many of the areas doctors are leaving are training hubs, which may explain why a significant number of doctors are leaving states such as New York and Pennsylvania.
Compensation isn’t necessarily the driving factor. More than half of doctors with 20 or more years of experience moved toward lower-paying states, according to the Marit Health report, which is derived from job applications and job posting views from more than 18,000 clinicians.
Physicians often choose regions where their dollar stretches further, said Dr. Lisa Newsome, an anesthesiologist at Chicago-based Northwestern Medicine. “You may make a little less, but then you get more house for your money and pay less in taxes,” she said.
Malpractice insurance premiums and states’ operating environments may also play roles in job seeking, Marit Health CEO Vikas Sabnani said. States such as Georgia and California tend to have lower malpractice insurance premiums than New York and Pennsylvania, he said.
“Physicians are drawn to states with a combination of a favorable lifestyle and practice environment,” Sabnani said. “But the biggest determinant is the supply and demand.