The Physician Shortage: Projections, Causes, and Solutions
Introduction AMN Healthcare, the nation’s leading healthcare workforce solutions company, produces a wide range of thought leadership resources on various healthcare workforce related topics. These resources include surveys, reports, podcasts, speaking presentations and white papers. In this white paper, AMN Healthcare’s Physician Solutions division (formerly known as Merritt Hawkins) examines physician supply and demand projections, the factors driving the physician shortage, and potential solutions to this critical workforce challenge. Physician Shortage Projections/AAMC There are various sources that assess physician supply and demand trends and project future physician workforce needs. Key among them is a widely referenced report issued periodically by the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC). In its 2021 report, the AAMC forecast a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034, including approximately 47,000 too few primary care physicians and an even greater shortage of approximately 77,000 specialists.
The AAMC’s 2024 report downgraded this forecast to a projected shortage of 86,000 physicians by 2036 (The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections From 2021 to 2036. AAMC. April 2024).
However, the report cautions that the reduced shortage numbers are based on “the hypothetical future growth in the number of medical residency positions nationwide.” Should this growth not materialize, the forecasted shortages could be significantly more severe. The AAMC report further notes that “if communities underserved by the nation’s health care system could obtain care at the same rate as populations with better access to care, the nation would need approximately 202,800 more physicians as of 2021 .” In effect, the AAMC suggests that it is only the low rate at which residents of economically challenged or isolated communities are able to access physician services that keeps the physician shortage from being exponentially worse. In a national address last year, American Medical Association (AMA) president Jesse M. Ehrenfeld, M.D. echoed this assessment, stating, “The physician shortage that we have long feared – and warned was on the horizon – is already here. It’s an urgent crisis.” (AMA President Sounds Alarm on National Physician Shortage. AMA News, October 25, 2023)
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