The U.S. urologist shortage, state by state: a 2026 data report

Across all 50 states and the District of Columbia, the NPPES registry lists 14,962 individual providers whose primary taxonomy is urology. Against a national population of just over 340 million, that works out to 4.4 urologists per 100,000 residents — one urologist for every 22,732 people.

The national average hides the real story, which is geographic. Nine states have fewer than 3.6 urologists per 100,000 residents, while the best-covered states have more than 5.5. A patient in Nevada shares each urologist with roughly 42,400 other residents; a patient in Rhode Island shares one with about 16,400. Same country, same specialty, two and a half times the coverage.

The pattern is consistent: fast-growing Sun Belt and Mountain West states have fallen furthest behind, while the older, denser Northeast keeps the highest concentration of urologists per resident.

Nevada is the most underserved state in the country, with 77 registered urologists for nearly 3.3 million residents — 2.36 per 100,000. Wyoming is second-worst by rate and last by raw count: 15 urologists statewide, meaning a single retirement can measurably change access for the whole state. New Mexico, Idaho, and Utah round out the bottom five.

Texas is the most consequential entry on the list. It is the country's second-largest state by population, yet it ranks sixth-worst for urologist coverage at 3.25 per 100,000 — nearly 31,000 residents per urologist, spread across enormous distances.

A clear thread runs through the bottom ten: several of them — Nevada, Texas, Idaho, and Utah — are among the fastest-growing states in the country, and physician supply has not kept pace. Demand for urology care also skews sharply toward older adults — enlarged prostate, prostate cancer, kidney stones, and incontinence all rise with age — so states that are both growing and aging are being squeezed from two directions at once.

The District of Columbia tops the table at 9.11 urologists per 100,000 residents — roughly one for every 11,000 people. That number reflects how academic medical centers concentrate specialists in cities that also treat patients from surrounding states, rather than uniquely easy access for D.C. residents alone.

Among the states, Rhode Island (6.11), Vermont (5.86), New York (5.73), and Massachusetts (5.58) lead. The Northeast's density, older population, and concentration of teaching hospitals have historically anchored large urology departments and the residency programs that feed them.

Even in well-covered states, access is uneven. Statewide averages mask the difference between a city with three competing urology groups and a rural county with none — workforce research from the American Urological Association has repeatedly found that more than 60 percent of U.S. counties have no practicing urologist at all.

Urology has one of the older physician workforces in medicine, with a large share of practicing urologists near or past traditional retirement age, and residency programs graduate fewer new urologists than the demand curve requires. The American Urological Association's annual census has tracked these warning signs for years.

On the demand side, the population over 65 is the fastest-growing age group in the country, and it is precisely the group most likely to need urologic care. The combination — flat supply, concentrated retirements, and rising age-driven demand — is why workforce projections consistently list urology among the specialties with the largest expected shortfalls.

For patients, the practical consequence is longer waits and longer drives, especially in the bottom-ten states. For health systems and policymakers, the state-level numbers above are a map of where recruiting, telehealth coverage, and residency expansion would matter most.

Counts come from the CMS National Plan and Provider Enumeration System (NPPES) NPI Registry API, pulled on June 11, 2026. We counted individual providers (NPI-1) whose primary taxonomy code falls in the urology family (codes beginning 2088, including pediatric urology and female pelvic medicine), assigned each provider to the state of their listed practice location, and deduplicated by NPI. Population denominators are the U.S. Census Bureau's NST-EST2024 estimates as of July 1, 2024. Puerto Rico and the territories are excluded.

NPI registrations are the most current public signal of where urologists practice, but they are not a perfect headcount: registrations can persist after a physician retires or relocates, and a small number of providers practice in more than one state. For comparison, the American Urological Association's survey-based census counts roughly 13,800 practicing urologists — somewhat below the registry figure used here. Per-capita rankings are robust to this kind of uniform overcount.

Journalists, researchers, and policymakers are welcome to cite this report with attribution to FindAUrologist and a link to this page. The full state table is published below so any figure can be checked.

If you live in one of the bottom-ten states, expect longer lead times and consider widening your search radius early: the next county over, the nearest academic center, or a telehealth-first visit to triage whether an in-person appointment is urgent.

Symptoms that should not wait for a distant opening — visible blood in urine, inability to urinate, fever with flank pain, or sudden testicular pain — belong in urgent or emergency care, not on a waitlist.

Wherever you are, the fastest path is usually calling the practice directly and asking for the first available appointment with any urologist in the group, then asking to be moved up if there is a cancellation list. Our directory pages list practice locations and phone numbers so that call is one click away.