Health Guide USA Commentary: The Primary Care Shortage in New England

Thursday, December 17, 2020

The Primary Care Shortage in New England

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) reports that, as of September 2020, more than 81 million Americans lived in areas or settings designated as a primary care Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA). An HPSA with a primary care shortage is a geographic area, population group, or facility that has poor access to basic healthcare services because it lacks a sufficient number of primary care providers. This HRSA designation is based upon the number of people residing within the HPSA relative to the number of primary care providers that service the area. For its purposes, the HRSA considers "primary care" providers to mean Doctors of Medicine (MD) or Doctors of Osteopathy (DO) who provide services as general or family practitioners, general internal medicine physicians, pediatricians, obstetricians or gynecologists. Although the population-to-provider ratio needed to qualify for primary care shortage area designation varies by HPSA type (geographic, population or facility), all HPSAs with a primary care shortage designation have a population-to-provider ratio that meets or exceeds certain thresholds established by federal regulations. HPSA's receiving a primary care shortage area designation are eligible to participate in federal programs aimed at attracting more primary care services to their communities. 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 six-state New England region account for 1.6% of the U.S. population who live in primary care shortage areas and just over 2.0% of the national shortage of primary care providers. To eliminate these shortages, the HRSA estimates that New England area HPSAs would need more than 300 additional primary care providers. Here is a summary look at the primary care shortage in New England