Health care reform was one of the most talked about topics in the last few months, even more than the economy. The Health care reform was made into law  and intends to reduce the cost of health care for Americans. Now that it is a law how does it affect you as a resident or one that is applying to be a resident?

Health care reform intention is to make medical insurance affordable to another 30 million people. These are Americans who simply cannot expend for their health.

Shortage of primary care doctors

The US is already having a severe shortage of doctors. Look at the infographic below:

Figure: Info graphic showing severe shortage of doctors in 2008

This data was published by the Kaiser Family Foundation in 2008. States like Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Nevada, Utah, Idaho and Texas have less than 10 primary care physicians for 1000 patients!.  Add to this another 30 million uninsured patients and what we have is shortage of epic proportion. The Association of American Medical Colleges projects that by 2025, there will a nationwide shortage of 46,000 primary care doctors. 

The good

Primary care is one of the lowest paid and least popular specialties, the next decade is going to be theirs. Primary care programs like internal medicine, pediatrics and family medicine will be in great demand. As demand rises good primary care physicians will be getting bigger pay. A family doctor typically earns around 100,000 but there are already sign of the pay shooting up in several cities for family and general practitioners,

Table: Top five metro areas for average annual pay.
Source: U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics

The bad and ugly

Unless the American Medical Association, Association of American Medical Colleges and the American Government quickly come with a concrete plan to tackle this major problem in the coming years we might see rationing of healthcare or huge wait times for care. There is an argument that nurses can do 80% of what primary physicians do and they can reduce the burden on doctors. This involves training these nurses and giving them more responsibility. Nurses are not in excess supply too and this will not be a long term solution for the problem.

The total number of seats to primary care programs has to be considerably increased and more qualified foreign medical graduates have to admitted to US programs. If not we are looking at longer hours and burn out of primary care physicians and more doctors moving away from choosing the primary care programs.

Further Reading

Area's Family doc salaries high - The Business Journal
Too Many Doctors, But Too Few Primary Care Ones - The Huffington Post
Shortage of primary care physicians - Google News