As of September 2020, an estimated 81 million Americans lived in more than 7,200 areas or settings designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) as a primary care Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA). A primary care HPSA is a geographic area, population group, or facility that has poor access to basic health services because it lacks a sufficient number of primary care providers. For HRSA purposes, primary care providers include 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. With respect to 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. Although the population-to-provider ratio needed to qualify for 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 limits stipulated by federal regulations. Areas designated as a primary care HPSA can participate in federal programs aimed at attracting more primary care providers to work with medically underserved populations. The HRSA estimates that, as of September 2020, all primary care HPSAs in the U.S. would need almost 15,000 more providers to eliminate all shortage designations.
HPSAs in the five-state Rocky Mountain region account for just over 3.6% of the U.S. population who live in primary care shortage areas. To eliminate the shortage, the HRSA estimates that Rocky Mountain region HPSAs would need over 500 more primary care providers. Here is a summary look at the primary care shortage in the Rocky Mountain region:
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| The Primary Care Shortage in the Rocky Mountain Region |
| State | (1) HPSAs | (2) Population | (3) Shortage |
| CO | 119 | 1,112.1 | 255 |
| ID | 98 | 482.9 | 70 |
| MT | 138 | 410.4 | 88 |
| UT | 64 | 777.7 | 103 |
| WY | 47 | 187.9 | 24 |
| Region | 466 | 2,971.0 | 540 |
| U.S. | 7,203 | 81,516.3 | 14,945 |
