Pa. doctors’ group focused on attracting primary care doctors
HARRISBURG — Ensuring the state has enough primary care doctors, advancing a prescription drug monitoring program and injecting more money into community clinics are among the Pennsylvania medical community’s top priorities in 2014, a group of doctors said Tuesday.
The Pennsylvania Medical Society highlighted a slew of health care needs at an end-of-year conference in the state Capitol. The group’s president, Dr. Bruce MacLeod, warned that a brief shortage of physicians is likely as more people in Pennsylvania get insurance under the federal Affordable Care Act.
“Today Pennsylvania finds itself in a relatively healthy situation, but there are signals that the new physicians who are graduating are looking to practice in other states,” MacLeod said. “Even though we’re in good shape now, we have to make sure that we replace those physicians who are retiring or planning to retire while keeping up with the new and impending health care demand.”
The state is doing well by some measures, such as ranking 10th highest in the U.S. in terms of the percentage of physicians engaged in patient care, at 253 per 100,000 residents, the 2013 State Physician Workforce Data Book reports. The state ranks 18th nationally in terms of active primary care physicians, at 86 per 100,000 residents.
“These are very important statistics to remember, particularly because there’s a looming question in many minds: Will there be enough physicians to keep demand that will occur due to the Affordable Care Act and newly insured individuals seeking first-time care?” MacLeod said. “Right now we have healthy numbers, and that’s good and something we definitely need to strive to maintain.”
The state boasts one of the largest physician training grounds in the country, with nine medical schools, but ranks 37th in the nation in retaining those completing in-state education through medical schools, residency slots and fellowship positions, data shows.
Gov. Tom Corbett made a brief appearance at the conference to tout his newly unveiled “Healthy PA” initiative, which encompasses a broad set of health care goals and plans, ranging from increasing the number of residency slots to a controversial way to provide coverage to those newly eligible for Medicaid under federal law.
Rather than expanding the state’s traditional Medicaid program with available federal funds, Corbett is negotiating a plan that would use federal dollars to allow some 500,000 additional Pennsylvanians to purchase insurance on the new federal marketplace. He’s faced blowback from some of the reforms he wants included in the program, including tying eligibility to a work-search requirement.
“We need a Pennsylvania solution for our citizens, so we need one that recognizes something that has been lost in all of the debate over the Affordable Care Act — that is that health care should be about the people, and not the paperwork involved,” Corbett said.
“That’s why my proposal, Healthy Pennsylvania, isn’t only about increasing the availability of health insurance using the private market,” he added. “It’s about making sure that we do have doctors, that we do have clinics, and we have an atmosphere focused on the health of our citizens, not on the bookkeeping.”
Among other efforts supported by Corbett and the doctors’ group:
n Health care teams, with Senate and House bills calling for the development of coordinated, team approaches for the delivery of care across a network of providers
n Telemedicine, such as connecting doctors to patients remotely through video conferences;
n Loan forgiveness, to incentivize doctors-in-training to practice in under-served areas in Pennsylvania;
n Prescription drug monitoring, with competing proposals to create a database accessible by doctors, pharmacies and, to a limited extent, law enforcement, now under consideration in the state Senate; and
n More funding for community clinics, with officials to announce soon how a pot of $4 million will be divvied up throughout the state.
“We know that prevention and family medicine does work,” Corbett said.
For the most part, MacLeod says the state’s current health care system can absorb the newly insured, since they’re already here and often being treated in free clinics and emergency rooms.
He said it’s predictable that primary care physicians will be in higher demand and that could mean longer waits to get an appointment until more physicians graduate from medical schools.
But he said the newly insured will have to start using the system before it’ll be clear what kind of specialists or surgeons are in higher demand.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.