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Fewer and more specialized: a new assessment of physician supply in California
Fewer and more specialized: a new assessment of physician supply in California
- Collection:
- Health Policy and Services Research
- Contributor(s):
- Grumbach, Kevin
Chattopadhyay, Arpita
Bindman, Andrew B.
California HealthCare Foundation. - Publication:
- Oakland, Calif. : California HealthCare Foundation, c2009
- Language(s):
- English
- Format:
- Text
- Subject(s):
- Family Practice
Physicians -- statistics & numerical data
Physicians -- supply & distribution
Primary Health Care
California - Genre(s):
- Technical Report
- Abstract:
- This report presents the findings of the first comprehensive study of the Medical Board of California survey data on practicing physicians in the state. The goal of the study was to use this Medical Board survey data to enumerate, more accurately than had been done previously, patient care physicians with MD degrees who were actively practicing in California in 2008, for the state overall and by individual county. Key Findings. (1) The overall supply of MD physicians in the state is lower than previous estimates. The supply of MD physicians in California estimated from Medical Board data is 17 percent lower than that estimated from American Medical Association (AMA) Physician Masterfile data. Based on Medical Board data, there were 66,480 physicians with MD degrees actively practicing in California in 2008. By contrast, AMA data estimates that there were just under 80,000; (2) The number of primary care physicians actively practicing in California is at or below estimated needs. Of active patient care physicians in California, 34 percent reported that they were in primary care, which is 20 percent fewer than the number of primary care physicians estimated from the AMA data. On a per capita basis, this figure amounts to only 59 primary care MD physicians in active patient care per 100,000 population, below what a number of studies have estimated is a range of 60 to 80 needed. If an estimate of the number of Doctors of Osteopathic Medicine (DOs) in primary care is added to this count, California has 63 active primary care physicians in patient care per 100,000 population, at the bottom end of the estimated need range. Moreover, the state's supply of primary care physicians is poorly distributed. Only 16 of California's 58 counties fall within the needed supply estimate for primary care physicians, and in eight counties the supply is less than half this range; (3) There is an abundance of specialists practicing in the state. Of active patient care physicians in California, 67 percent reported that they were non-primary care specialists. The number of specialists per 100,000 population in California (115) is well above the upper range (105 per 100,000) of most assessment of need, and more than half of the state's 58 counties are above the bottom estimated need level for specialists (85 per 100,000 population); (4) Rural counties suffer from low physician practice rates, and from a diminishing supply of primary care physicians. In general, rural counties tend to have far fewer physicians per capita than urban counties; counties in the Central Valley and Inland Empire are particularly likely to have a low supply of physicians. Several rural counties face the additional predicament of an aging physician primary care workforce, and an apparent difficulty recruiting younger physicians to take their place.
- Copyright:
- Reproduced with permission of the copyright holder. Further use of the material is subject to CC BY license. (More information)
- Illustrations:
- Illustrations
- NLM Unique ID:
- 101516755 (See catalog record)
- Permanent Link:
- http://resource.nlm.nih.gov/101516755