Healthcare Nevada, 2026. The bad news? The state ranks at or near the bottom of healthcare rankings in terms of the number of physicians and primary care providers per 100,000 population.
“Estimates are that there’s a shortage of about 2,500 physicians in the state, and worse, of course, in the rural areas. There’s a significant need for additional physicians and also for other healthcare providers, including nurses, PA’s, dental and mental health professionals,” said Dr. Alan Kadish, president, Touro University Nevada. “The shortages are significant—in all of those areas the state ranks in the bottom five to 10 in the country in terms of numbers of healthcare providers.”
“We have figures that come out of the Office of Statewide Initiatives, School of Medicine, and whether you’re looking at primary care or a sub-specialty or a sub-sub-specialty, we rank between 45th and 50th in the U.S. in terms of physicians per 100,000 population. What adds to the challenge is we’re such a big state geographically, thereare a lot of logistical issues getting healthcare out to some of our smaller communities,” said Dr. Paul Hauptman, dean, University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine, and Chief Academic Officer, Renown Health. That’s in terms of staffing.
The Challenges
The question then turns to healthcare access, how difficult it is for patients to access care, and whether or not they can even get what they need without leaving the state. One survey shows Nevada in 50th place in terms of healthcare access.
“Although we’ve done a good job of growing the number of residencies and fellowships in Nevada over the past several years, we just haven’t been able to keep up with the growth of our population and there continues to be many areas of health professional shortage. Nevada ranks 45th amongst other states in regards to physician coverage,” said Dr. Bill Plauth, chief medical officer, Renown Health, Associate Dean for Clinical Affairs, University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine.
In some areas, Nevada healthcare ranks even lower – 48th for primary care physicians, 49th for general surgeons. The encouraging aspect, said Plauth, is that the state ranks sixth in keeping residents and fellows. Of residents completing residencies, 60 percent stay in Nevada to practice. Those who also attended medical school in the state kick the number up to 80 percent staying.
Which suggests the system isn’t graduating enough people. Because otherwise, it seems unlikely to have such a shortage. The structure is set up well, but there aren’t enough residencies or fellowships. “When we look at our number of medical students, we’re right in the middle of the pack, ranking 24th as far as the number of medical students per 100,000 in our population. But we’re 41st for the number of residents and fellows for that population,” said Plauth.
If medical schools in the state continue investing in starting residencies and fellowships and get that number more appropriate for the population. It’s possible to improve the physician workforce situation. That’s not only important for the delivery of healthcare and improving healthcare needs in both urban and rural areas, but it’s also that these programs and the development of the physician workforce are an economic driver for the community. Partly because of what they put back into the local economy, but also because a robust healthcare system is attractive to businesses considering locating here.
While all counties have shortages, rural areas have it worse. Highly specialized medicine won’t locate in rural areas because there isn’t enough demand. So when patients need it, they have to travel, at a cost of time, money, and convenience.
“Even if the number of physicians seems not so deficient, actually accessing care, particularly if you don’t have private insurance, can be difficult,” Kadish said. That’s true everywhere in the country. Manhattan has a huge number of physicians, but only a limited number take Medicaid. “It’s not a local problem, but Nevada is worse than many places in this regard.”
The third part of the puzzle, after providers and access, is patient outcomes. Nevada’s healthcare system doesn’t do well there, either.
“So if you look at the number of providers, the state does not do well,” said Kadish. “Look at access to care, the state does not do well. Look at outcomes; the state doesn’t do well. If anything, with some of the challenges of lifestyle in the state, we probably need more healthcare providers than average, not less.”
Mental healthcare rankings put the state in the bottom percentage of states. Life expectancy in the state is 76 years, one of the worst in the country.
It’s a grim overall picture, one that needs solutions. The good news is medical schools and affiliated hospitals are actively seeking solutions.
Homegrown: Nevada Medical Schools
There are more medical schools in Nevada than most people probably realize, including Roseman University of Health Sciences, Touro University Nevada, and Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine at UNLV in Southern Nevada. In Northern Nevada, there’s the University of Nevada, Reno, School of Medicine, known for research and affiliations as well as graduating doctors. Each medical school plays its own unique part in graduating tomorrow’s doctors.
UNLV School of Medicine, once part of the University of Nevada, Reno, became its own 4-year medical school and accepted its first class in July 2017. Now in its ninth year, it has graduated five years of medical students. “We have 11 residency programs and 13 fellowship programs, and we also have a masters program in couples and family therapy, which is a really important program for increasing access to mental health services in Las Vegas,” said Dr. Alison Netski, dean, Kirk Kerkorian School of Medicine, UNLV.
Having a medical school in the community does more than graduate physicians and the healthcare workforce. There’s an economic component, both for the community and the state, and there’s access to care through the school. UNLV has cutting-edge clinical trials in areas like new surgical techniques for minimally invasive fibroid treatment. There’s also a number of locations that provide patient care for anything from pediatrics to endocrinology, rheumatology to oncology, and pulmonary critical care to prenatal care. This access to healthcare exists because medical students are working with residents and faculty while developing the future healthcare workforce.
Roseman’s College of Medicine was granted preliminary accreditation in February of last year and is graduating its first class of 64 students in 2029. The way Roseman has structured its curriculum and the way it fits into the community, it’s not only community-engaged but rather dependent on the community to teach its students. That makes the impact of the medical school in the community immediate.
“You don’t have to wait until students become full MD’s,” said Dr. Joe Greer, founding dean, College of Medicine, Roseman University of Health Sciences. Because Roseman students, supervised by an MD, are assigned households throughout the city, part of an interdisciplinary team providing free healthcare to the most vulnerable members. It’s a curriculum designed to produce “the kind of clinician we need with the virtues, the character, the empathy, the humility and to learn how to take care of everybody in our community, including those who keep our community going, the service industry,” said Greer.
With the physician shortage, it’s worth noting that when Roseman has a full complement of classes, there will be up to 440 students, each responsible for one to two households and averaging three to four people. “So you’re talking about over 3,000 people getting healthcare for free. These are individuals who need to have the healthcare. They’re the ones that maintain our system,” said Greer.
“The shortage is significant,” said Netski. “Las Vegas continues to grow. We are very popular for people to relocate. If you look at the number of people who lived here when the school started to now, our population has grown by about half a million people.”
Toward the end of providing that population with healthcare, UNLV continues to grow programs with expansions in psychiatry, ob/gyn, and new programs like the rheumatology fellowship.
“We’re making progress, but the pipeline [from education to workforce] is long,” said Netski. It requires “four years medical school, anywhere from three to six years residency program, anywhere from one to three years for a fellowship program. So when you’re using an infrastructure strategy to grow your own healthcare workforce, it does take time.”
One of the hospitals affiliated with UNLV is UMC (University Medical Center). “UMC is the largest public and academic medical center in the state of Nevada. We have large acute care services, inpatient and outpatient, but also a robust ambulatory division,” said Mason Van Houweling, CEO, UMC.
The hospital is also affiliated with the College of Southern Nevada, Roseman, Touro, and nursing schools, and is currently working with its partners to build additional residencies.
“We’ve started one just this year,” Van Houweling said. Having recognized a critical shortage in radiologists, they’ve developed a 4-year diagnostic radiology residency starting in 2026.
One way to address the physician shortage is to change from contracting with physicians to an employer model. UMC is working to make Southern Nevada a destination for employment in the medical field and has been able to expand the number of in-house physicians. In the last few years, they’ve grown anesthesia, radiology, emergency medicine, internal medicine and hospitalist programs, and orthopedic and spine care, helping to close some of the gaps in care.
University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine opened in 1971. It admits 70 to 72 students each year. Among programs offered are speech pathology and audiology, which include undergraduates majoring in those disciplines, and about two dozen masters degree students in speech pathology.
“We also have an extensive biomedical research enterprise, making [the school] more like a research-intensive community-based medical school,” said Hauptman. The school also has areas of defined expertise in muscular dystrophy, smooth muscle biology, infectious disease diagnostics, and cardiac arrhythmia.
UNR School of Medicine is in the fifth year of a historic 50-year affiliation with Renown Health.
“We’re the only not-for-profit integrated academic health system in Nevada, and that creates a unique opportunity for us not only for serving our larger community, but also growing undergraduate and graduate medical education, ultimately with the goal of improving our physician workforce and access to care in Nevada,” said Plauth. The affiliation with Renown allows UNR to expand its clinical research footprint and continue growing clinical trials.
Touro has been working with its hospital partners to expand graduate medical education. The university trains more medical students than any other school in Nevada, graduating around 170 each year, a third of whom remain in state for their residency. Some 40 to 50 percent of Touro graduates go to work in primary care, one of the most significant areas of shortage.
Touro also trains nurses, PA’s, and is beginning to train mental health providers. “We’re trying to address all issues by increasing supply,” said Kadish. “The other piece is to make sure that the pathways for residencies for physicians and to jobs for other healthcare providers are smoothed over in the system so students are incentivized to stay in the state where they’re really needed.”
For nurses graduating from their programs, UMC has built a residency providing another level of training, said Van Houweling. The program was created, in part, to offer residency training to keep nurses in the community.
Residencies are a path to becoming a healthcare provider. Not every path is the same. With the critical need for more providers in the state, there are solutions for training the professionals needed. For example, there’s a shortage of psychiatrists in Nevada and it takes a long time to get someone through medical school and a psychiatry residency. But it’s possible to quickly train mental health counselors, nurses and PA’s with psychiatry specialties. “So we’re doing that, and trying to supplement the physician workforce, but there’s no question we need more psychiatrists, and more clinical psychologists,” Kadish said.
UNR offers residencies in psychiatry, along with pediatrics, family and community medicine, and internal medicine. They’re building an ob/gyn residency, and planning a general surgery residency, a pulmonary and critical care fellowship, a rural track and family medicine, and a fellowship training in cardiology, all by the end of 2030.
“The cautionary note is that it takes between two and three years from conception to actually launch a residency,” said Hauptman. In the meantime, there are five fellowships—sports medicine, child and adolescent psychiatry, hospice and palliative care, geriatric medicine, and wilderness medicine, which manages healthcare for individuals in rugged rural areas. The School of Medicine’s commitment to rural healthcare includes a mandatory rural rotation for four-year students.
Specialized Care and Socio-Economic Concerns
So what specialties are medical schools teaching, and what does Nevada need more of? The data shows the state needs more of everything. Some specialty areas are worse than others, and then in some areas, Nevada healthcare shines.
For example, UMC’s transplant center consistently ranks among the top kidney transplant centers in the nation.
“We offer shorter wait times, stellar clinical outcomes, and survivability,” said Van Houweling. “The transplant center has also introduced pancreas transplants, further evolving and improving access to care.” UMC has also opened a liver care center in 2026, allowing liver-care patients to remain in the state.
Renown Health now has extracorporeal membrane oxygenation (ECMO), which can stabilize patients with severe heart and/or lung issues. There’s a new renal transplant program, and they’re gearing up to do cellular therapy for advanced cancer care, all specialties that might draw patients to Nevada, and let Nevada patients get care at home.
“We’re building advanced care options because we want to keep patients in the community and limit the degree to which they have to leave the state and go to the Bay Area or University of Utah,” said Hauptman. “That’s incredibly expensive and inconvenient for patients who are sick.”
“There’s a need for more specialty care and more high-level care, and it’s both a clinical need and a socio-economic issue because we have many patients who, because of the shortage of high-quality specialty care, end up leaving the state. That has an economic impact on the healthcare system,” said Kadish.
Specialties available at Kirk Kerkorian include things like plastic and reconstructive surgery following cancer treatment, as well as care available to the community.
“One of the things about working at a medical school, we try to provide services to everybody in the community that we can. We are really important partners to the state of Nevada through all Medicaid programs and all commercial insurance and to people who have Medicare, because of being partly state-funded institution and being here to serve the community,” said Netski.
Keeping medical graduates in Nevada has a positive economic impact. Keeping patients in Nevada for their healthcare needs creates $3 billion in reverse medical tourism. Staying in Nevada for care is a huge economic boon for patients.
Another economic boost: residents are paid. Because they’re not paid through health insurance reimbursement to facilities, there are federal programs that pay in part, though the system is complex and caps out after a certain threshold.
One benefit of the nationwide physician shortage is that it’s on everybody’s radar and that federal money is available. Nevada received $179 million in federal funds for various healthcare projects, administered by the Nevada Health Authority. The money comes from Public Law 119-21, signed into law on July 4, 2025. In part, the money is meant to help critical access hospitals and rural communities once Medicaid cuts take effect.
Looking Forward
Despite challenges of finding enough healthcare providers for Nevada, many experts in the field feel encouraged. Change is occurring, elevating healthcare in Nevada. The City of Las Vegas is working to create an enhanced medical district that includes research opportunities and makes the state a magnet for research dollars and activity. Private organizations are partnering with medical schools to conduct economic studies and search for data on improving healthcare access.
“If the state’s going to continue to grow, we have to solve this problem of healthcare access,” said Hauptman. “It’s really, to a large degree, not just the right thing to do but a smart business decision. Companies that are thinking about relocating, perhaps to Nevada, are likely asking, ‘Tell me about access to healthcare and tell me about K-12 education.’ I’m in the business of improving the former and others can work toward improving the latter.”
“We have the opportunity right now to do [healthcare] right,” said Greer. “We have the opportunity to be the example for the rest of the country. I want to be a part of that team. I feel like I am, and I enjoy working with all the other deans and all the hospital systems. And I am highly encouraged by the fact that I live in a community that deeply cares about their own community.”
