While it is generally accepted that the shortage of physicians in the U.S. is driven by an aging population of current physicians, an insufficient number of residency slots and increased demand for medical procedures, Rep. Greg Murphy, MD, R-N.C., offered another reason in a Dec. 3 Medical Economics report.
"I think we have to have a real serious conversation about the physician workforce," Rep. Murphy said. "What's happened? No. 1 reason we have a physician shortage is, the people who've gone to medical school are not practicing medicine."
He also acknowledged consistent decreases in physician reimbursements and an aging population, among other factors, as the main drivers of the physician shortage. But he recalled the 1990s, a time when healthcare analysts claimed that "America didn't need more doctors," according to the report.
Medical Economics references a March 1997 article, "Doctors Assert There Are Too Many of Them," published by The New York Times, which cited the American Medical Association and medical school representatives who claimed that the U.S. was training too many physicians.
“They didn't realize that as populations go to medical schools, we have a lot of folks that go to medical school that are never going to practice medicine," Rep. Murphy said. He said that some go to work for pharmaceutical companies while others opt to work part time in order to spend more time with their families.
1997 was also the year that the Balanced Budget Act placed a cap on the number of physician residencies funded by Medicare, which remained until 2021.
Rep. Murphy maintained that those who take up residency slots and earn their Doctor of Medicine degree should continue on a path to serving patients full time.
"If you don't want to practice full time, then go be somebody who gets a nurse practitioner degree or a PA, or get your PhD if you want to do research," he said. "We need doctors in the seats, or at the patient's bedside, in the clinic. We don't need people who are doing other things to go to medical school."