Where Have All the Providers Gone?
Today, nearly 57 million people in the U.S. – one in five Americans – live in areas where they do not have adequate access to primary health care due to a shortage of providers in their communities. According to the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), we need 16,000 primary care practitioners to meet the need that exists today.
This shortage is felt most acutely in rural and low-income urban areas. Although more providers of all types are needed, the shortage is overwhelmingly a primary care provider shortage, and it is expected to get worse. 52,000 primary care physicians will be needed by 2025.
Consider these sobering figures:
• Fifty years ago, half of the doctors in America practiced primary care, but today fewer than one in three of them do.
• As many as 45,000 people die each year because they do not have health insurance and do not get to a doctor on time.
• The average primary care physician in the U.S. is 47 years old, and one-quarter are nearing retirement.
• In 2011, about 17,000 doctors graduated from American medical schools. Despite the fact that over half of patient visits are for primary care, only 7 percent of the nation’s medical school graduates now choose a primary care career.
• Nearly all of the growth in the number of doctors per capita over the last several decades has been due to a rise in the number of specialists. Between 1965 and 1992, the primary care physician-to-population ratio grew by only 14 percent, while the specialist-to-population ratio exploded by 120 percent.8
This dramatic trend must be reversed.