In June, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius said that the federal government will spend $250 million to increase the number of primary care providers.
This is welcome news for Morehouse School of Medicine and the other medical schools that focus on training students for practice in primary care, often in vulnerable communities. But it's also great news for patients and taxpayers.
More primary care physicians will reduce our nation's health care costs long term. Good primary care leads to more of the preventive care, early detection and timely treatment that can reduce the rate of chronic disease and the astronomical cost burdens that have come with it.
Unfortunately, as a nation we have been going in the wrong direction for years now when it comes to building the primary care workforce. If we don't change our trajectory, the Association of American Medical Colleges forecasts a shortage of 21,000 primary care physicians by 2015. By 2020, the projected gap doubles.
Given the years of medical training required to be a physician, we won't be able to create 42,000 primary care doctors overnight.
The reason for the decline in primary care doctors is straightforward. The economics of the health system reward specialty practice, with specialists typically earning significantly more than primary care doctors. When the average medical student graduates with well over $100,000 in debt, it's not hard to understand why we're seeing fewer primary care practitioners.
The HHS spending will help with this by creating more opportunities and incentives to practice primary care.
The largest chunk of the money --- $168 million --- will help fund residency training for more than 500 new primary care physicians by 2015. Funded residency positions are hard to come by but critical to medical education.
Most of the remaining money will fund training for the physicians assistants and nurse practitioners who, without a medical degree, can provide much of the front-line care people need. Some of the money will fund health clinics staffed by nurse practitioners. These kinds of clinics are vitally important to rural and underserved populations who otherwise would have little access to health care.
Other elements of the new health care law also will pull more medical students into primary care. For example, medical school graduates who agree to practice primary care in underserved rural and urban areas will be eligible for help with their school loans. Grants will be available to community colleges, Hispanic-serving institutions and historically black universities like Morehouse, which were recently ranked as our nation's top producers of primary care physicians. Students will be able to tap new financial aid, and health professionals working in underserved areas will get expanded tax benefits.
As a medical school president, I cannot overstate how important it is to help medical students afford careers in primary care. Many students come to us with undergraduate debt, so even as we strive to keep costs down and focus on primary care training, some students will choose specialty practice out of sheer necessity.
When 2020 comes, will we have enough primary care doctors to meet our nation's needs? Whatever the answer, it will come with a cost. I am confident that this initial investment, which pales next to the billions of dollars our country spends every year on chronic disease, will pay off in better care, more access to care, more prevention, early detection of disease and lower health care costs across the board.
Dr. John E. Maupin Jr. is president of Morehouse School of Medicine.
Copyright 2010 The Atlanta Journal-Constitution