<p>What are factors that affect where a doctor is "allowed" to work after finishing everything and getting ready to practice?</p>
<p>Or are there no such restrictions?</p>
<p>The reason I ask is that I would like to live in southern California where all my family are.</p>
<p>No restrictions as long as you are able to obtain a medical license and malpractice insurance in the state of interest. Market pressures will make securing a job in some cities more difficult than others.</p>
<p>just as a note of pure benefit to you, id consider shying away from California; the Wage tax is almost 50%. The federal level tax with the state level tax will amount to about 50% ish and will most likely stay at 50% for many years.</p>
<p>50%? </p>
<p>I know this seems like a clueless question, but does that mean literally half of your income is taken away? Or does it mean only half of your income is considered taxable and a certain %-age is taken from that?</p>
<p>Post #3 is clearly including federal taxes. California state income taxes are about 10%, with a very low highest bracket. This is very high, although California property taxes are on the low side. (On the other hand, since property in CA is so expensive, your property taxes in an absolute sense usually comprise a high proportion of your income.) </p>
<p>When you include federal income taxes (~30%) and payroll taxes (either ~7% or ~14%), plus a variety of sales taxes and property taxes, 50% is probably an underestimate for higher income brackets.</p>
<p>^^^ ya something like that.</p>
<p>federal tax is 35% backet for 250k plus. That amounts to around 31% for 300k+. As the state is broke, California sucks up like 10%. Misc. taxes like property will drain the other few percents to make 50%.</p>
<p>50 cents of every dollar you earn will be taken by Uncle Sam. On the other hand… you get cheap… healthcare… as a doctor. But you will be a doctor so you will presumably get free healthcare.</p>
<p>Time to work in Oregon :)</p>
<p>:<
Darn, I really like California.</p>
<p>Don’t worry, docs in California aren’t homeless. To an extent at least, higher taxes can also require hire wages for the medical professionals in order for California to feed its extreme hunger for healthcare.</p>
<p>Docs in California generally make less than elsewhere in the US. This is partly due to high penetration of managed care in California as well as particularly low Medicaid reimbursements.</p>
<p>In some parts of California, for sure, but there are regions that pay well (pre-taxes) and are definitely above average salary from what I have seen. </p>
<p>Ironically, parts of Mississippi have among the best paid docs in the country. I knew a few Emergency Medicine docs bringing in close to a million before taxes on the coast.</p>
<p>I must confess that I’m only familiar with the urban areas in California: the Bay Area and Los Angeles. I’m sure there are some regions which tend to pay better.</p>
<p>Yeah, like I said I’m mostly talking about pre-tax income. I’m sure with heavy taxing (which I am not familiar with for Cali) there is a substantial drop in income rankings for docs.</p>
<p>Rural areas in general tend to bring in higher salaries… the demand is greater and there is less competition for patients. These places don’t tend to be areas doctors want to live in, though.</p>
<p>On the plus side, California does have reasonable malpractice insurance rates due to MICRA.</p>
<p>I may be wrong but I think Indiana and Illinois have best pay for specialist groups.</p>
<p>Yeah, but California has a HUGE market for all-cash plastics!</p>
<p>well, huge market or no huge market, the margins for profits are significantly cut once the 50% tax is considered.</p>
<p>Personally I think family is more important than money, but I don’t know about you guys.</p>