Doctors In Rochester, Minnesota Now Earn The Most In America

Think being a doctor pays well? You're not wrong. And, here in Minnesota's Med City, physicians aren’t just earning big, they’re taking home the highest average paychecks in the entire country.

Minnesota is, of course, the Land of 10,000 Lakes, but we're also the Land of Over 28,000 physicians. That's according to the Minnesota Department of Health, which noted in this 2023 document that there are 28,247 physicians currently licensed in the state (which, as the document noted, could include both non-active or non-clinical physicians)

Report: Rochester Leads U.S. in Physician Compensation

And the North Star State is routinely ranked as one of the top states in the nation when it comes to healthcare. So, it makes sense that the state's many hospitals and clinics need a lot of physicians to provide that care. And it also makes sense that Rochester leads the country when it comes to paying them.

That's the word from this report from Doximity, a network of health care professionals. The most recent Doximity annual compensation analysis found that physicians here in Rochester earn, on average, just under half a million dollars a year-- the highest amount of any city or metro area in the country.

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Rochester is currently the largest outside of the Twin Cities metro and is now the third-largest city in the entire state. And, of course, Rah-Rah-Rochester is home of the world-renowned Mayo Clinic, which has been ranked as the top hospital in the world for 8 years in a row.

So, not surprisingly, Rochester also topped the Doximity list of U.S. cities where doctors are paid the most, when adjusted for each city's cost of living.

And according to Doximity, those nearly half a million dollar salaries aren't sitting still, either-- the report found that physicians' paychecks in Rochester are increasing at the rate of 8.7 percent annually, also one of the top rates in the country.

Doctors in Minnesota's largest city, Minneapolis, also aren't doing too poorly in the paycheck department, earning an average of $452,598 a year, good for 8th place on the most recent Doximity list.

Top 10 U.S. Cities for Highest Doctor Salaries

Here are the top 10 cities and how much physicians earn, according to Doximity:

1. Rochester, Minnesota  - $495,532
2. St. Louis, Missouri - $484,883
3. Los Angeles, California - $470,198
4. San Jose, California - $469,878
5. Sacramento, California - $460,671
6. Phoenix, Arizona - $459,082
7. Riverside, California - $455,986
8. Minneapolis, Minnesota  - $452,598
9. San Francisco, California - $449,830
10. Charlotte, North Carolina - $448,400

Rochester owes a lot of its development and growth to Mayo Clinic. And since the Mayo brothers themselves started seeing patients over 100 years ago, a lot of famous faces have headed here to southeast Minnesota to seek treatment. Keep scrolling to see who some of them are!