North Dakota Ranks "Ninth" in Top Ten Best States for Healthcare

Posted 9/17/19 (Tue)

A new survey from WalletHub took a state-by-state (including D.C.) look at more than a dozen data sources to compile its rankings for 2019 Top Ten Best State for Healthcare. Each state is ranked based on a composite score of three areas:

• the cost of healthcare services,
• patient access to physicians and other providers, and
• patient outcomes data

Out of the top ten, North Dakota ranked in ninth place: COST 3; ACCESS 9; OUTCOMES 22

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), 87.6 percent of the population has a regular place to go for medical care. But the cost and service quality of that care can vary widely from state to state. The overall health of the population, more advanced medical equipment and a general lack of awareness regarding the best types of treatment, for instance, can all affect costs.

According to a study by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the U.S. lags behind several other wealthy nations on several measures, such as health coverage, life expectancy and disease burden, which measures longevity and quality of life. However, the U.S. has improved in giving more healthcare access for people in worse health, and healthcare cost growth has slowed somewhat.

Conditions aren’t uniform across the U.S., though. To determine where Americans receive the best and worst health care, WalletHub compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 43 measures of cost, accessibility and outcome.

Learn more.