Health Reform Won't Fix Doc Shortage

The doctor shortage in Alaska is so great, some local experts think the state should pay physicians to move there.

Medicare and Medicaid already pay bonuses to family doctors who work in underserved areas. Yet, across the country, there's a shortage of primary-care doctors in poor urban and rural areas, a problem that's only going to be exasperated in the future. Not enough students are enrolling in medical schools.

Now, there's concern that President Obama's health reform, which promises to add health coverage to tens of millions of more Americans will add more demand for family physicians without addressing the shortfall.

“Do the math,” Steven Safyer, CEO of New York-based teaching hospital Montefiore Medical Center, tells Bloomberg News. “You give millions more people insurance, and it adds up to a much worse shortage.”

There's a shortage of almost 17,000 doctors in poor urban and rural areas, according to government figures. That already taxes hospitals in urban areas, like Jamaica Hospital Medical Center in New York and Mount Sinai Hospital in Chicago. Without access to primary doctors, many patients end up in ER departments of these hospitals. That's the most expensive type of care and leads to a lot of unpaid bills. U.S. hospitals reported $34 billion in uncompensated care in 2007, up 9 percent from the prior year, according to the American Hospital Association.

So even if more people have insurance, there's no guarantee they'll have a doctor who serves their community.

At the urging of the Association of American Medical Colleges, medical schools plan to add 3,000 first-year students in the next 10 years, but that's hardly enough.By 2025, the U.S. will see an estimated shortage of 159,300 doctors, Bloomberg reports.