Last week we mentioned that one of the new health care reform law’s purposes is to attract more doctors to the primary care field. The Wall Street Journal covers the well-reported fact that the law will challenge hospitals and medical schools as millions more Americans are added to the Medicaid program. To draw more doctors to primary care, the law will raise the reimbursement rate, but maybe only temporarily. From the WSJ:
The U.S. has 352,908 primary-care doctors now, and the college association estimates that 45,000 more will be needed by 2020. But the number of medical-school students entering family medicine fell more than a quarter between 2002 and 2007.
A shortage of primary-care and other physicians could mean more-limited access to health care and longer wait times for patients.
Proponents of the new health-care law say it does attempt to address the physician shortage. The law offers sweeteners to encourage more people to enter medical professions, and a 10% Medicare pay boost for primary-care doctors.
Medical schools are trying to do their part. University of Arkansas at Fayetteville’s Richard Wheeler, executive associate dean for academic affairs, said his school has “tried to make sure the attitude of students going into primary care has changed. To make sure primary care is a respected specialty to go into.”
The WSJ reports that new medical schools have opened, which may help increase the number of doctors, but which may not necessarily increase the number of primary care physicians. Specialties are more lucrative. Under the new law, the government will pool funding for unused residency slots and send it to other institutions, with a preference to primary care and general surgery. Will it work?