As designated by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), a primary care health professional shortage area (HPSA) is a facility, geographic area, or population group where residents are underserved for basic medical care because not enough primary care physicians service the community given the size of its population.  As of March 31, 2025, more than 77.2 million Americans lived in HRSA-designated primary care shortfall areas.  The twelve-state Southeastern U.S. had, as of 3/31/25, almost 25.7 million residents living in primary care shortfall areas.  The HRSA estimates that to eliminate this shortfall, the Southeastern U.S. would need over 4,200 additional primary care physicians serving HPSAs in the region.  A deeper examination of 3/31/25 HRSA data provides the following state-level view of the primary care shortfall in the Southeastern U.S.:

The Primary Care Shortfall in the Southeastern U.S.

State	(1) HPSAs	(2) Population	(3) Shortfall
AL	109	2,018,437	221
AR	144	1,101,893	131
FL	292	6,166,533	1,338
GA	231	2,783,079	586
KY	231	1,426,402	305
LA	175	2,086,166	206
MS	153	1,379,002	251
NC	195	2,296,076	409
SC	93	1,395,598	162
TN	142	2,364,873	272
VA	137	1,933,391	210
WV	121	748,303	123
Region	2,023	25,699,753	4,214
U.S.	7,749	77,253,848	13,364

(1) HRSA-designated Geographic Units, Population Groups, and Facilities with a primary care shortfall

(2) Population of designated HPSAs

(3) Primary Care practitioners needed to remove the HPSA Designation

Source:  Designated HPSA Quarterly Summary, 3/31/25 (HRSA)