primary care

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Finger Lakes 1

A new report from the Center for Health Workforce Studies found that hospitals, clinics, nursing homes and home care agencies across upstate New York still struggle to recruit registered nurses, licensed practical nurses, therapists, primary care physicians and other essential workers. At the same time, the education pipeline is producing fewer nurses in the Finger Lakes and Central New York even as demand is projected to remain high.

The findings are contained in the center’s 2026 report on healthcare workforce supply and demand. The University at Albany-based research center examined employment, salaries, professional licenses, graduations, employer surveys and state labor projections.

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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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Ithaca.com

An innovative training program bringing medical residents to Cayuga Medical Center in 2019 for their residencies will help attract new primary care physicians to the region. With more primary care physicians, patients will find it easier to schedule medical visits and enroll as new patients with medical practices…

…Tompkins and nearby counties face a growing shortage of primary care physicians. A 2017 study by the School of Public Health at the State University of New York at Albany found large differences in where primary care physicians practice in the eight-county Southern Tier region. The area’s urban counties of Tompkins, Broome and Chemung have one primary care physician for about every 900 residents. In the region’s five rural counties, there is one primary care physician for about every 1,700 residents. Community health planners predict a growing shortage of primary care doctors in all Southern Tier counties as the region’s existing physicians retire, and its demographics shift to an older population needing more primary health care services.

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BJNN

U.S. Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D–N.Y.) is backing a bill that would add 15,000 more Medicare-supported residency-training slots for doctors…

…Schumer’s release also cited a “recent major report” for the Center for Health Workforce Studies (CHWSNY) found that providers are “unevenly distributed” across New York.

CHWSNY, also based in Rensselaer, is part of the University at Albany’s School of Public Health.

The report found that Central New York has one of the “lowest rates” of family and general-practice physicians in the state, with only one primary-care doctor for every 1,330 people, Schumer’s office said.

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Times Telegram

Sen. Charles Schumer wants to take action to forestall a growing shortage of physicians.

He visited Oneida Healthcare on Friday to call for passage of the Physician Shortage Act of 2018, which would create 15,000 more Medicare-supported training slots for medical residents. The number of doctors trained in this country is limited by the number of available residencies…

…Jean Moore, director of the Center for Health Workforce Studies at the University at Albany, took a more nuanced view of the bill. To some extent, physician shortages are in the eye of the beholder, she said.

“That’s a trick question,” she said. “There’s a lot of different answers depending on your perspective on that. We need to find ways to use the people that we have more efficiently and to recognize that a lot of times when we talk shortage, it’s really maldistribution.”

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Pharmacy Choice

Senate Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer today launched a major effort to urge his colleagues in both the Senate and House of Representatives to immediately pass the Physician Shortage Act of 2017. Schumer explained that this critical legislation will add 15,000 more Medicare-supported residency training slots for doctors, helping to ensure teaching hospitals can train enough physicians to meet the growing demands for physicians as our nation is already in the midst of a doctor shortage. According to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the U.S. is expected to face a shortage of up to 43,100 primary care physicians and 61,800 specialty physicians by 2030…

…Additionally, a recent major report for the Center for Health Workforce Studies (CHWSNY) found that providers are unevenly distributed across New York, with the Southern Tier often having far fewer physicians than it needs.

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HealthNewsDigest.com

The Exit Survey, conducted annually since 1998 (excluding 2004 and 2006), provides an overview of the outcomes of training and the demand for new physicians. Among the key data points tracked by the survey include physician job market assessments, demand based on areas of specialization, and the likelihood of physicians practicing in New York after completing training.

The demand for primary care physicians has outpaced demand for specialists every year since 2008. Primary care physicians were less likely than their specialist counterparts to report difficulty in finding a satisfactory job; they received more job offers than specialists and had a more positive assessment of the regional job market. Also of note, the average increase in median starting income was four percent for primary care physicians versus 3 percent for specialists from 2012 through 2016.

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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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Utica Observer-Dispatch

Excellus BlueCross BlueShield members will have a new, telehealth option for minor medical problems in the new year. For a $10 co-payment or $40 for those in high-deductible plans (until the deductible is met), members can talk to a primary-care doctor by telephone or videoconference on smartphones or other electronic devices about minor, acute illnesses. The service is not meant to replace the patient’s relationship with a primary care doctor; it simply gives patients a way to consult a doctor when their own isn’t available.

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Times Telegram

A new community health center is offering Herkimer County residents another place to turn for medical care. Valley Family Health Center, at 55 Central Plaza, Suite B in Ilion, started seeing patients part time in May and is hosting a formal ribbon cutting at noon Tuesday. The federally qualified community health center offers primary care and women’s health services.

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