The growing shortage of these doctors means they’ll be in demand for the foreseeable future. The Washington Post features a story about hospitals in the Washington area trying to lure primary care physicians out of private practices. Hospitals in Texas also are courting primary care physicians.
An aging population and doctors choosing more specialized fields of medicine have created a growing need for primary care physicians in East Texas, according to local doctors and hospital administrators.
Primary care physicians — generally defined as doctors in the field of family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics and obstetrics/gynecology — tend to be among the older doctors in the area.
Younger doctors are more likely to specialize, creating an environment where there is less access to routine medical care, said Dr. James Sawyer, a physician with the Diagnostic Clinic of Longview who focuses on internal medicine.
“I’m part of the team that recruits new doctors to join our practice, and it’s getting increasingly difficult to find new primary care physicians who want to come to smaller towns,” Sawyer said. “At the same time, we’ve got an aging population nationwide, which means there’s a greater demand for doctors.”
In related news, the Houston Chronicle reported last year that in the previous two years, about 350 Texas doctors have dropped the Medicare program, and in 2008, 62 percent of those doctors were primary care physicians. With restrictions on physician-owned hospitals, lowered reimbursement rates, and doctor shortages, hospitals may succeeded in luring more primary care physicians.
