The answer is yes, but that won’t stop the blind drive to cover the uninsured.
The AAMC came out with a report quantifying the shortage, and the numbers are not good. The demand for physicians will grow by 26.3 percent from 2006 through 2025, with the situation (not surprisingly) most acute in primary care.
Also worth noting is that inpatient care will be the setting of “greatest need,” which makes some sense as the elderly are the greatest utilizers of hospital care.
If universal care were enacted, “overall demand for physicians would go up by 4%, which would increase the shortfall by 25%, or an extra 31,000 physicians.”
How will this affect patients? The usual suspects are listed, including longer appointment waiting times, increased travel distances, shorter visit times, expanded use of mid-levels, and higher prices.
As I mentioned earlier, don’t look for NPs and PAs to make up the shortfall. There aren’t enough of them either.
It seems like a no-brainer to solve the delivery-side problems first before expanding coverage.
topics: shortage, universal coverage
Related posts:
- Will universal health care lead to a physician shortage?
- My take: Dr. Nurses, supporting universal care
- Primary care incomes and universal health coverage
- How the primary care doctor shortage threatens Obama’s health reform plan
- Will the lack of primary care doctors make universal coverage useless?
- Is universal health care worth the long waits?
- Can universal health coverage be sustained long-term?
{ 4 comments }
There is no physician shortage. There is a demand surplus.
It will get shorter very soon. I don't know who can afford to send their child to med school. According to the NY Times, college is becoming unaffordable. Between 1982 and 2007, the average tuition increased 439% while the average median income rose just 147%.
http://www.nytimes.com/2008/12/03/education/03college.html?bl&ex=1228453200&en=a32b625bf9928825&ei=5087
Whoa… some people SEND their kids to med school? I thought that’s what loans and starving were for…
–Future med student
Flawed logic Kevin. (usually you are spot on).
You want to solve the delivery side first? Um so and are you planning on just putting the people without coverage into a closet?
People don’t “purchase” health care doctors prescribe and control access. By telling us that we shouldn’t provide coverage to people you are suggesting that this means they won’t go to get care?
Great then they will become sicker or simply use ER (97% of all er visits are by people with insurance).
You seem to be so busy working that you have gotten lost inside your silo.
The FIRST thing to do is universal coverage. The SECOND thing to do is ensure that people get the recommended care (less then 50% of the time) The THIRD is to get every doctor in the country to read the Dartmouth Atlas that proves that the more doctors in a region the more care is provided with NO increased in quality or outcomes.
Doctors are the last ones we want to be in charge of our healthcare system. Where else do you have a monopoly that complains when primary care doc’s are only being paid $150,000 a year.
Open up slots in medical schools and pay for their education to smart middle class students who will work in primary care and in a few years we will have more then enough primary care doctors who aren’t so greedy.
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