A geographic area, facility, or population group where residents have impaired access to basic medical care because the setting or area has too few primary care physicians relative to its population size can be designated a health professional shortage area (HPSA) by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA).  As of December 31, 2022, more than 98.5 million Americans lived in areas or settings designated by the HRSA as primary care HPSAs.  The six New England states were home to nearly 1.4 million people who lived in a primary care HPSA, accounting for about 1.4% of Americans who lived in primary care shortage areas.  The HRSA estimates that to eliminate this primary care shortage, New England HPSAs would need 216 more primary care physicians.  As such, New England accounted for about 1.3% of the national shortage of primary care physicians.  A closer study of 12/31/22 HRSA data reveals the following about New England's primary care shortage:

New England's Primary Care Shortage

State	(1) HPSAs	(2) Population	(3) Shortage
CT	43	431,866	61
MA	68	528,050	99
ME	82	124,339	24
NH	30	161,596	17
RI	13	137,033	13
VT	16	13,902	2
Region	252	1,396,786	216
U.S.	8,294	98,537,257	17,065
% of U.S.	3.0%	1.4%	1.3%

(1) Designated Geographic, Population Group, and Facility HPSAs with a primary care shortage

(2) Population of designated HPSAs

(3) Primary Care practitioners needed to remove HPSA Designation

Source:  Designated HPSA Quarterly Summary, 12/31/22 (HRSA)