physician shortages

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Spectrum News 1

A new report on New York’s healthcare workforce says the state still doesn’t have enough primary care providers, especially in upstate regions, leaving millions of residents with fewer options for routine care and longer waits for appointments.

The report, from the University at Albany’s Center for Health Workforce Studies, finds persistent gaps in primary care across much of New York. Program manager Nafin Harun said nearly 5 million people live in federally designated primary care shortage areas.

“We need just above 1,000 providers to close those shortages,” Harun said, adding that figure is a floor, not a ceiling, for what’s needed.

For patients like Justine Morris, the impact is personal. Morris said not having a primary care provider allowed a misdiagnosis to linger.

“I didn’t know I had cancer for the last seven months. I just found out they didn’t send me the correct report,” Morris said.

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City & State New York

New York City’s public hospitals, which form a critical safety net for many low-income residents, are facing a shortage of doctors who work in primary care, the day-to-day physicians with whom patients make first contact, such as those in family practice, pediatrics and internal medicine.

There is no shortage of primary care doctors in the state as a whole, according to a 2018 report from the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany. But New York’s doctors are poorly distributed, with almost a third of the state’s population living in a federally designated health professional shortage area – including many in poorer areas of New York City, such as East New York, Brownsville and Washington Heights.

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The Buffalo News

Physician shortages, especially in primary care, have become a problem throughout the United States, as fewer medical students go into the field and older doctors retire. Primary care includes internal and family medicine, pediatrics and obstetrics-gynecology.

There were about 1,500 primary care doctors in 2015 in Western New York, about 70 percent of them in family or internal medicine, according to the University of Albany Center for Health Workforce Studies. This region had 72.2 family and internal medicine doctors per 100,000 population compared to a statewide average of 85.5.

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