The Physician Shortage: Projections, Causes, and Solutions
As the charts show, seniors represent only 14% of the population but generate 34% of inpatient services and 37.4% of diagnostic treatments and tests. Seniors typically are covered by Medicare, and therefore often have the ability to access medical services.
Growth of the senior population, and the correspondingly higher utilization of healthcare services this will create, is the single most significant trend driving the physician shortage.
3. Provider aging: More than 30% of physicians in active patient care are 60 years old or older, according to the AMA, while 20% are 65 or older, creating a looming “retirement cliff” in the physician workforce.
Specialist physicians are, in general, older on average than are primary care physicians, as the numbers below indicate, and they will be retiring in proportionately higher numbers.
Percent of Physicians 55 or Older
Percent of Physicians 55 or Older
Specialities
Specialities
Pulmonology
73%
Ophthalmology
48%
Psychiatry
60%
General Surgery
11%
Cardiology (Non-Inv.)
54%
Gastroenterology
45%
Orthopedic Surgery
52%
Anesthesiology
44%
Urology
48%
Percent of Physicians 55 or Older
Primary Care
Internal Medicine
40%
Family Practice
38%
Pediatrics
38%
Source: AMA Physician Master File
Older patients are dependent on specialists to treat declining hearts, lungs, and other organs, and it is specialty physicians who are likely to be in particularly short supply in coming years.
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