A new study published in the Annals of Family Medicine reaffirms a fear that has been persistent for the last decade: the healthcare worker shortage across America is growing, especially in rural areas. The report found that there has been a year-over-year decrease in family medicine physicians practicing in rural areas, further compounded by a 11% nationwide decrease. The report found that the Northeast was the most impacted area, and the West coast the least.
Indeed, the healthcare system is getting crushed by increasingly long wait times, a growing aging population, and increasing chronic health problems. A survey by the American Academy of Family Practice found that wait times for appointments in family medicine have increased by nearly 16% since 2009. Another study found that the average wait time has now reached nearly 31 days across most major metro cities, citing huge shortages in staff and lack of open physician capacity.
This is further compounded by a massive aging population that will soon require care; in fact, studies indicate that the country will have a shortage of nearly 86,000 physicians by 2036. There’s also the added fact that there is a huge upcoming doctor retirement cliff.
All of these factors are a recipe for disaster.
Needless the say, the system is not setup for success. Healthcare training is one of the hardest paths that students can pursue; medical school tuition can cost more than $300,000, on average, on top of undergraduate studies and the numerous expenses associated with board exams and training. Furthermore, the training time takes nearly 7 years after undergraduate studies, at minimum, requiring a high vigor of dedication and patience. Additionally, the existing workforce is crumbling under massive amounts of administrative stress, including documentation burdens, cumbersome authorization procedures, and numerous other tasks unrelated to patient care. For many physicians, these burdens are some of the main reasons to leave the field entirely.
Fortunately, awareness is being raised around these issues, and government agencies and states are starting to take action. For example, Texas recently enacted the DOCTOR Act, hoping to provide some respite to nearly 30 counties in Texas that have zero primary care physicians. The act aims to provide foreign medical graduates with a faster path to practice in the state. In fact, Texas is not the only one pursuing this methodology; an article by the American Medical Association explains that nearly 17 states have enacted laws to try and improve foreign medical licensing requirements. Other states are attempting to improve the shortage by quelling the problems that current physicians already in the workforce are facing. For example, Iowa has passed a law around prior authorization in an attempt to try and ease the paperwork for both providers and patients; prior authorization is notoriously one area which clinicians often have to spend hours to try and navigate amidst an already packed schedule.
Nevertheless, despite all the work being done to alleviate these issues, it will certainly take time to solve a problem that has been brewing for decades.
