The United States is facing a primary care physician shortage, but the most pressing problem is uneven distribution, particularly in poor and rural communities. Providing adequate access to care for the nearly 30 million uninsured people living in these communities will require potent incentives and policy. Show
There are about 80 primary care physicians per 100,000 people in the United States; however, the average is 68 per 100,000 in rural areas and 84 per 100,000 in urban areas. An unequal distribution implies that many areas have relative primary care shortages, especially rural communities and areas of measurable social deprivation. Most states and primary care service areas currently have shortages by any measure because the physician workforce is concentrated in urban and suburban areas (see accompanying table).
 Unlike many Western nations, the United States does not manage or actively regulate the number, type, or geographic distribution of its health workforce. As a result, health care professionals choose how and where to work. Equitable distribution of the workforce and access to care largely rely on market forces, with important but insufficient intervention from government, medical schools, and safety net programs. The result is incongruency between the geographic location and specialty choice of the health workforce and enduring health care needs of the U.S. population. To eliminate physician shortages at a population-to-physician ratio of 2,000:1, the goal set by the Health Resources and Services Administration, the supply of physicians would need to be increased by 2,670 in rural areas and 3,970 in urban areas. The average ratio across the United States is 1,485:1. Achieving this ratio for all communities would require nearly 7,000 more rural physicians and nearly 13,500 more inner-city physicians. Many people in the most underserved communities are uninsured. As health reform provides insurance to millions more Americans, lack of access to primary care because of distribution problems will be significant. New incentives and policies for distributing primary care physicians to areas of greatest need, as well as a larger absolute number of these physicians will be needed to ensure access for the newly insured. This fact sheet shows that primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants are more likely to practice in rural areas than are non-primary care specialists, but are still more concentrated in urban areas. The U.S. primary care workforce includes approximately 209,000 practicing primary care
physicians, 56,000 nurse practitioners (NPs), and 30,000 physician assistants (PAs) practicing primary care, for a total of nearly 295,000 primary care professionals (Table 1). Source: AHRQ Primary Care Workforce Facts and Stats #1 and #2. Uneven geographic distribution of the health care workforce creates problems with access to primary care. While primary care physicians are more likely to practice in rural areas than are non-primary care specialists, they still are more concentrated in urban areas. Within the primary care physician workforce, family physicians and general practitioners are more likely than either general internists or pediatricians to practice in rural areas and to distribute themselves proportionally to the U. S. population (Table 2). NPs and PAs are more likely than physicians to work in rural areas (16% vs. 11%), and primary care NPs and PAs are much more likely to be rural (28% and 25%, respectively) (Table 2). This rural distribution is higher than that of primary care physicians as a whole and similar to that of family physicians (22%). Table 2. Geographic distribution of health care professionals, 2010
Note: Data derived from analysis of National Provider Identifier file, November, 2010; U. S. Census Bureau Population Estimate, 2008. Rural and urban designations are taken from the Rural-Urban Commuting Area Codes, a Census tract-based classification scheme that uses standard Census Bureau definitions in combination with work commuting information to characterize rural and urban status and relationships of the Nation's Census tracts. Roughly, large rural populations = 10,000-50,000; small rural populations = 2,500-9,999; and remote rural/frontier populations = less than 2,500 people. For more information, go to: http://depts.washington.edu/uwruca/RUCACodeDes2.pdf and http://depts.washington.edu/uwruca/ruca-uses.php. Page last reviewed July 2018 Page originally created September 2012 Internet Citation: The Distribution of the U.S. Primary Care Workforce. Content last reviewed July 2018. Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality, Rockville, MD. Which type of physician maldistribution problem's occur s the United States?oped1-0905. The physician labor supply suffers from two maldistributions—specialty and geography.
Which of the following is the most common reason that both physician clinics and hospitals have been slow to adopt electronic health records EHRs )?The major barrier to adoption of the EHRs system, as identified by some studies, was a misalignment of cost and benefits or financial reimbursement (9, 10).
Which type of healthcare facility employs the most people in the United States?In 2019, around seven million people worked at general medical, surgical or specialty hospitals; some two million at outpatient care centers and about 1.8 million worked at nursing care facilities.
Which of the following factors is the leading cause of preventable disease and death in the United States quizlet?Cigarette smoking is the leading cause of preventable death and disease in the United States.
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What is the basic source of the physician distribution problem in the United States?
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