There won’t be enough doctors to meet the booming demand for healthcare services over the next decade due primarily to the graying U.S. population, a new study claims.
The Association of American Medical Colleges detailed the shortage in a report released today that found the U.S. would face a shortage between 46,000 and 90,000 by 2025. The association said Congress must provide $1 billion in additional funding for medical graduate programs now to train more doctors.
“The shortages are real and they are in both primary care and specialties,” said Darrell Kirch, president and CEO of the teaching hospital industry group, during a call with reporters. “Specialty shortages may even be larger than the primary care shortages.”
The study found that while the number of physicians is expected to grow by nine percent over ten years, demand for healthcare services is expected to grow up to 17 percent. There will be a shortage of up to 31,100 primary care physicians and up to 63,700 specialty physicians, especially surgical specialists, according to the association.
The study took current physician totals and simulated the increased healthcare service demands expected over the past 10 years.
The primary cause of the increasing demand is the aging U.S. population. The number of people over 65 will grow by 40 percent by 2025, said Kirch.
Another cause of increased demand will be Obamacare extending health insurance to the uninsured, creating a greater demand for medical services. The study accounted for all states expanding Medicaid, even though not all have done so.
Kirch pushed for Congress to increase contributions to medical graduate programs. Right now Congress funds about $3 billion a year to cover some tuition costs for up to 29,000 physicians a year. The program kicks in about $40,000 of the $152,000 per year medical student cost, the association said. The association wants Congress to fund an additional 3,000 physicians a year, which would cost another $1 billion annually.
Because training a new doctor takes between five and ten years, Congress needs to act now, he said.
However, the additional physicians won’t totally make up the shortfall. Kirch said new payment and healthcare delivery models are also needed to fill the gap but declined to elaborate.
CORRECTION: The amount and proportion of the cost of medical training covered by Congress was inaccurate in an earlier version of this story. TheWashington Examinerregrets the errors.
