10 states with the best healthcare

In just a few short months, open enrollment begins and many employees may be looking to enhance their benefits. Knowing where states excel, alongside where they don’t, can help employers have the best plans in place to meet the needs of their workers.

Wallethub has compared the 50 states and the District of Columbia across 29 key metrics —ranging from “average monthly insurance premium” to “number of physicians per capita” to “percentage of adults and children with health-insurance coverage.” These 10 states fare best when it comes to healthcare.

The metrics Wallethub used to calculate overall scores used weighted metrics across three key scopes: healthcare costs, access and outcomes. To define costs, the credit-monitoring company analyzed costs of medical visits and dental visits, average monthly insurance premiums and out-of-pocket medical spending.

For healthcare access, 16 different metrics were used — ranging from average emergency-room wait time to number of hospital beds per capita. For health outcomes, nine metrics were analyzed including infant, child and maternal mortality rates, cancer and heart disease rates and patient hospital-readmittance rates.

Each metric was graded on a 100-point scale, with 100 representing the best healthcare.