As of September 30, 2020, more than 81 million Americans lived in over 7,200 areas or settings designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) as a primary care Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA). An HPSA is a population group, geographic area, or facility that has substandard access to health services because it lacks a sufficient number of primary care, dental or mental health care practitioners. In terms of primary care, HRSA designation criteria is based upon the population within the HPSA relative to the number of primary care providers that service the area. For HRSA purposes, primary care providers include Doctors of Osteopathy (DO) or Doctors of Medicine (MD) who practice as general or family medicine practitioners, general internal medicine physicians, pediatricians, obstetricians or gynecologists. While the population-to-provider ratio needed to qualify for designation varies by HPSA type (population, geographic or facility), all HPSAs with a primary care shortage designation have a population-to-provider ratio that meets or exceeds certain thresholds stipulated by federal regulations. Areas designated as an HPSA are eligible to participate in federal programs aimed at attracting more primary care practitioners to work with these medically underserved populations. The HRSA estimates that, as of September 30, 2020, all primary care HPSAs in the U.S. would need nearly 15,000 more primary care providers to eliminate all shortage designations.
HPSAs in the MidEast region account for just over 8% of the U.S. population who live in primary care shortage areas. To eliminate the primary care shortage in the region, the HRSA estimates that MidEast region HPSAs would need over 1,550 more primary care providers. Here is a summary look at the primary care shortage in the MidEast region:
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| The Primary Care Shortage in the MidEast Region |
| State | (1) HPSAs | (2) Population | (3) Shortage |
| DC | 15 | 240.5 | 58 |
| DE | 13 | 233.9 | 55 |
| MD | 45 | 801.5 | 112 |
| NJ | 36 | 28.7 | 22 |
| NY | 168 | 4,917.4 | 1,197 |
| PA | 139 | 511.0 | 114 |
| Region | 416 | 6,733.0 | 1,558 |
| U.S. | 7,203 | 81,516.3 | 14,945 |
