Not Enough Physicians in Massachusetts To Care for Newly Insured Residents

There are not enough primary care physicians in Massachusetts to meet the demand for care created by the state's health insurance law, according to health care reform advocates and medical professionals, the Boston Globe reports. Jon Kingsdale, executive director of the Commonwealth Health Insurance Connector Authority, said that as of Jan.1, about 340,000 state residents, most of whom had previously been uninsured, are now insured through state programs.

Bruce Auerbach, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, said, "What [the Massachusetts health insurance law] has done is highlighted the crisis and the problem that we have with the primary care work force." A medical society study found that in 2006, 53% of patients who had an appointment with a PCP were able to see a doctor within one week of initiating contact, compared with 42% in 2007.

Carroll Eastman, medical director of the Joseph M. Smith Community Health Center, said new clinic patients must make appointments two to three months in advance. She said, "The health center already has 1,000 more patients than can be comfortably accommodated," and that number does not include the 500 to 1,000 new Commonwealth Care beneficiaries who have chosen the clinic as their primary care site but have not yet been seen by a physician.

John McDonough, executive director of Health Care for All, said, "We think that health reform has moved the work force issue toward a much more prominent place." State officials and health care advocates are trying to increase recruitment of physicians through a medical school loan repayment program, and the state Legislature is considering legislation (SB 2526) that would establish a primary care recruitment center in the state. However, some health care advocates and providers say that the real problem is that the state underestimated the number of uninsured residents (Perez-Brennan, Boston Globe, 5/29).