America’s Top 20 Metros, Ranked for Healthcare

Healthcare in America’s biggest cities matters more than ever as urban living becomes the norm, but the quality, cost, and accessibility of care vary dramatically depending on where you live. From Los Angeles to New York City, HealthCare Insider analyzed the 20 most populous metro areas to determine which cities offer the best healthcare experiences across key metrics.

Explore the guide below to see how your city compares on healthcare cost, access, and quality.

An ER visit can cost five times more in San Francisco than in Minneapolis, while Boston and Philadelphia shine for access to healthcare workers and preventive care, and cities like Detroit and Miami lag in everything from life expectancy to patient satisfaction.

Cities With The Best Healthcare

The following are the top 20 cities for healthcare. Each city was given a score based on overall cost, ease of access, and quality of care.

1. Boston
2. Minneapolis-St. Paul
3. Philadelphia
4. Baltimore
5. Seattle
6. Pheonix
7. San Diego
8. Denver
9. Chicago
10. Tampa
11. Washington, D.C.
12. Los Angeles
13. New York
14. Detroit
15. Miami
16. San Francisco
17. Houston
18. Riverside-San Bernardino
19. Atlanta
20. Dallas

Overall, Boston ranks highest as the city with the best healthcare, performing ahead of every other metro in all three categories.

ACCESS

Some cities have high overall scores but perform better or worse in terms of access to care. Evaluating the following factors can paint a more realistic picture and help determine if a city has the access to healthcare you need.

• Hospital Beds Per 1000 People
  Best City: San Diego
  Worst City: Washington, D.C.
• Nurses Per 1,000 Jobs
  Best City: Philadelphia
  Worst City: Washington, D.C.
• Surgeons Per 1,000 People
  Best City: Boston
  Worst City: Atlanta
• Mental Health And Substance Abuse Social Workers Per 1,000 Jobs
  Best City: Boston
  Worst City: Houston and Atlanta tie
• Total Healthcare Workers Per 1,000 Jobs
  Best City: Philadelphia
  Worst City: San Francisco
• Visits To Dentist Or Dental Clinic In The Previous Year Among Adults Aged 18+  (%)
  Best City: Seattle
  Worst City: Detroit and Dallas tie

QUALITY

Similarly, quality of care can vary greatly from city to city. An area might have a high overall score for its easy access and low costs but rank lower in terms of actual treatment. Here’s how the top cities compare in terms of medical care quality.

• Hospital Satisfaction: Patient Ratings (1-5)
  Best City: Dallas
  Worst City: Miami
• Percent Receiving Preventive Services 65+
  Best City: Washington, D.C.
  Worst City: New York
• Percent Receiving Adequate Prenatal Care
  Best City: San Francisco
  Worst City: Houston
• Life Expectancy
  Best City: San Francisco
  Worst City: Detroit
• Percent Uninsured
  Best City: Boston
  Worst City: Dallas
• COVID Local Risk
  Best City: Seattle
  Worst City: Detroit and Miami tie
• Cardiovascular Deaths Per 100,000
  Best City: Boston
  Worst City: Miami

COST

Evaluating cost is also an essential factor when comparing the best cities for healthcare. Average medical expenses can differ drastically by area. Having high-quality local healthcare is meaningless if you can’t afford to access it. Here’s how the top cities rank by cost of care.

• Insurance Premium (average ACA silver plan)
  Best City: Atlanta
  Worst City: Washington, D.C.
• Healthcare Cost Index (*average healthcare service prices compared to the national average)
  Best City: Baltimore
  Worst City: San Francisco
• Angioplasty (open blocked coronary arteries)
  Best City: Riverside-San Bernardino
  Worst City: New York
• Ambulance Transportation
  Best City: Baltimore
  Worst City: Dallas
• Emergency Department Visit
  Best City: Minneapolis-St. Paul
  Worst City: San Francisco
• Simple Dental Cleaning
  Best City: Boston
  Worst City: New York
• Average Colonoscopy
  Best City: Chicago
  Worst City: San Francisco

Methodology

In order to determine which most populous U.S. cities offers the best healthcare, HealthCareInsider compared 20 urban areas across three categories: 1) Cost, 2) Access, and 3) Quality.

We evaluated these categories using the 20 measures below. For each measure, cities were graded on a 100-point scale. A score of 100 represented the best performance.

Lastly, we added each metro’s score across all measures to rank America’s 20 top cities.

Sources: Data used to create this ranking were collected from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, United States Census Bureau, NYU Langone Health City Health Dashboard, Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), FAIR Health, Turquoise Health, and HealthCare.com research.