Nationwide report shows doctors are increasingly retiring or leaving their practice due to workload and pay issues, leaving patients without their physician or as many to choose from.
01/05/2024 1:25 P.M.
3 minute read
Patient demand for care is increasing while availability of primary care doctors is declining, according to an article from NPR and KFF Health News.
“The stress of the pandemic drove a lot of health care workers to retire or quit. Now, a nationwide shortage of doctors and other professionals who provide primary care is making it hard to find replacements,” according to the article, which cites a study (PDF) on health center workforce from the National Association of Community Health Centers. “And as patients are shuffled from one provider to the next, it’s eroding their trust in the health system.”
American Medical Association president Jesse M. Ehrenfeld recently said the physician shortage is a “public health crisis,” according to the article.
The National Association of Community Health Centers found that there are more than 1,400 community health centers in the U.S., and 67% of them saw between 5% and 25% of their employees leave over six months in 2022.
Community health centers are federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) because they serve uninsured and underinsured, according to the article.
“Another 15% of FQHCs reported workforce attrition rates of 25% to 50%. And it’s not just doctors: the most severe shortage, the survey found, was among nurses.”
While the health care workforce declines, community health centers are seeing more patients—an increase of 24% nationally between 2015 and 2022.
“As private practices close or get smaller, we are seeing patient demand go up at the health centers,” said Elena Nicolella, Rhode Island Health Center Association president and CEO in the article. “Now with the workforce challenges, it’s very difficult to meet that patient demand.”
Industry Insight
Outside of research on staff shortages in the health care industry, regulations of medical debt credit reporting could have an impact on access to care as well.
The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau is in the early stages of proposing a rule on the Fair Credit Reporting Act and medical debt.
ACA’s comments highlight the deleterious effects these changes would have on consumers, especially low-income consumers, in addition to markets, small businesses, and the entire credit and debt collection industry, ACA previously reported.
In its feedback to the CFPB, ACA focused on the impact to low-income consumers and health care providers in rural areas.
“Arbitrary changes hurt patients,” said ACA CEO Scott Purcell. “Delaying reporting to one year enables insurance companies to deny claims for untimely filing. This, and not reporting debts under $500, negatively affects health care providers’ revenue, resulting in reduced access to care for low-income [consumers] as providers move to more upfront payments. Congress didn’t provide for unelected CFPB staff to make health care policy decisions; it’s a slippery slope. Americans deserve greater access to affordable health care, not less.”
An economic analysis (PDF) of the CFPB’s FCRA rule proposal by Andrew Rodrigo Nigrinis, Ph.D., shows the bureau has yet to study whether providers will react by refusing to provide credit and cutting consumers off from health services, or by raising prices on all consumers and hurting everyone. Providers may also wind-up requesting cash upfront for co-pays and deductibles, hurting low-income community members who can’t afford to pay those all at once, thereby reducing their access to health care.
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