U.S. physician shortage going to get worse: Time

LOS ANGELES, July 27 (Xinhua) -- The United States is experiencing a physician shortage, and it's only expected to get worse, reported the Time magazine on Monday, noting that the concerning situation could lead to poorer health outcomes for many patients.

The country could see a shortage of 54,100 to 139,000 physicians by 2033, and the shortfall is expected to span both primary- and specialty-care fields, said the report, citing data published in 2020 by the Association of American Medical Colleges.

"The physician shortage can justly be characterized as a looming public-health crisis," James Taylor, group president of the leadership solutions division at AMN Healthcare, the largest health care staffing agency in the United States, was quoted as saying by the report.

Taylor pointed out that the types of shortages and poor access to care that have been common in rural and underserved urban areas for the past few decades will become more common nationwide.

The severity of the problem varies from specialty to specialty and primary care is the largest area of concern, said the report, adding that difficulty in accessing primary care puts additional strain on emergency departments, which have been battered by the COVID-19 pandemic over the past two years.

Because the problem is multifactorial, there's no simple answer to fixing the looming physician shortage. Instead, a robust and innovative multipronged approach will be required, the report noted, adding that these efforts must include increased funding, debt relief, technology, expanding the care team, reducing the paperwork burden, and boosting diversity and equity in medicine.