Primary Care Policy Analysis

According to Health Resources and Services Administration If the system for providing primary care in 2020 were to stay fundamentally the same as today, there will be an estimated shortage of 20,400 primary care physicians ("Projecting the Supply and Demand for Primary Care Practitioners Through 2020," n.d.). In addition this projection doesn’t include the decreasing number of people perusing the medical degree and the baby boomers retiring form this filed of science. In the hand we are experiencing a significant increase in NPs and PAs. Considering this projected shortage, which is actually a very frightening situation the increasing number of NPs and PAs, can effectively be integrated; we could reduce the number of physician shortage by over 69 percent in 2020.

Currently, there is still a large shortage of primary care practitioners in the United States. The margin between available providers and those in need continues to grow. Many people without proper access to care have to delay seeking help for what ails them ("Health Wanted," 2012). Glicken & Miller (2013) state that approximately 16,000 primary care providers would be necessary to meet the existing demand. Rural communities would represent the area of greatest need followed closely by low-income urban areas. The number of underserved individuals is estimated to have reached fifty-seven million. This demand will only increase, as 52,000 primary care providers are expected to be needed by the year 2025 (Glicken & Miller, 2013, p.1883-1889).

The Obamacare/ACA, might have helped numerous of individuals in acquiring health care, but the health professionals are facing a shortage of reimbursement difference for their services. As a result, Hospitals and healthcare providers were force to layoff personal and come up with innovative solutions. This point is proven by the renowned author, Amy Anderson by stating as follows: “The American health care framework has had shortages of personnel for quite some time and would not be prepared to give the adequate service to this amount of patients in need of medical attention. Training new professional health services personnel could take years. There is a shortage of graduates from medical and nursing schools. Doctors, nurses and health professional are sharing responsibilities prospective patients will face a longer wait time”. (Anderson, 2014)

On March 23, 2010, President Barack Obama signed the Affordable Healthcare bill into law. There has been much controversy over this Affordable Healthcare Act before and since it was signed into law. It was estimated that 30 million people would sign up for the new healthcare and that the healthcare industry would need a bigger workforce. Within hospitals across the United States there is already a shortage of nursing and medical staff. What will this new law mean for hospitals in their declining health care professionals? In what other ways will this healthcare law impact hospitals across the United States? This paper will attempt to explore some of the realities and possibilities in greater depth.

With advances in medicine, Americans are living longer and with chronic illnesses that require long term medical maintenance. As the population has grown with patients that are aging and becoming sicker in the process, there has presented a shortage of physicians to manage this rise in demand. Now, with the passage of new legislation such as the Affordable Care Act, more patients have access to health care than ever before. Many experts have suggested increasing the utilization of Nurse Practitioners and Physicians assistants as a cost effective resource to tackle to rising cost of healthcare amid a physician shortage in America. Several studies have been performed to assess the viability of these options, to address the advantages and

Economics and health were two independent subjects in high school, but nothing is truly independent in the real world. Supply and demand, one of the principals of economics, perfectly sums up the problem with primary health care. The supply of primary care physicians, also known as PCPs, is lacking by almost 52,000 providers to be able to fulfill the demand of the public within the next couple of years, and this isn’t a new issue (Petterson et al., 2012). Since the 1970’s there has been a shortage of PCPs, and it is becoming a bigger problem as the population grows and ages (Wilensky, 2014). The number of PCPs currently in the United States is not enough to meet the needs of the population. The view of primary care physicians and their salaries need to change in the U.S. to encourage more medical students to enter this much-needed field of practice. This paper will explore the reasons behind the shortage of PCPs and how the Affordable Care Act and the American Nurses Association are addressing this issue.

With an estimated of 32 millions Americans are expected to gain health insurance through the Affordable Care Act, a sizable workforce will be needed to meet the demand. According to Anderson, the healthcare workforce has been facing a critical shortfall of health professionals (2014). Based on the report that was conducted by Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the United States will face a shortage of more than

A great cause for concern in today’s healthcare system is the shortage of nurses. The shortage of nurses will continue as society lives longer, albeit sicker, as technology advances. The chasm that exists between healthcare demand, available nurses and mid-level practitioner must be narrowed. Without a solution, healthcare disparities

According to Hunt (2013) “the industry was one of the few that continued to grow and hire during the Great Recession” (para. 6). With the help of Obamacare a more rapid change among job opportunities will be available in this practice (Hunt, 2013). Obamacare will most likely bring forth a shortage in our primary care physicians and nurses (Vincent, D., & Reed, P., 2014). This shortage will allow for an increasingly large amount of job opportunities in the nursing practice. A significant advancement “According to the report, Affordable Care Act of 2010: Creating Job Opportunities for Racially and Ethnically Diverse Populations, the healthcare sector could add 4.6 million jobs over the next decade - a 31 percent increase in the industry”(Hunt,2013, para.3). Such a modification is critical because the nursing practice will immensely grow to more suitable standards. There will be an increased number of people with health insurance therefor an increase number of people will seek medical help. When many more individuals are seeking medical help, hospitals will need to accommodate the large inflow of

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) introduced by the Obama administration is expected to provide health insurance benefits to approximately 30 million Americans. Nonetheless, coverage expansion is not synonymous with actual care expansion, and this dissimilarity is becoming much clearer. When the national health law was passed by Congress, it unleashed tsunami mayhem of insured new patients and a consequent flooding of a system of deliver that was already fragile and strained. For decades now, the American health care system has experienced exponential workforce shortages and is hardly prepared to meet the huge influx of patients efficiently or effectively. Successful training of new nurses, physicians as well as other health care professionals takes several years or eve decades. With less graduates from medical and nursing schools and an increase in innovation for sharing responsibilities and roles among doctors, nurses and other medical personnel, patients and families will be susceptible to extended wait times, extreme difficulty in accessing healthcare providers, shorter time with providers, further costs and other new frustrations with health care delivery (Anderson, 2014).

The projected physician shortage is well documented. Several estimates have been made as to the severity of the shortage with the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) predicts required 46,000 physicians to meet demand and a study by Cowell et al putting the number at 44,000 by 2025 (1). The reasons for this increased demand are numerous. For starters, as John Prescott, AAMC chief academic officer, says, “There 's 10,000 more baby boomers every single day in the U.S. and those individuals tend to require additional care” (2). Those baby boomers requiring care will undoubtedly include retiring physicians; 2,504 family physicians are expected to retire in 2015 alone with that number only expected to grow in upcoming years (1). In addition to the increased care inherently required by elderly patients the Affordable Care Act (ACA) has expanded medical insurance to several that have never had access before; while this is great news to those with coverage for the first time it also increases the number searching for a physician. A report prepared for Congress stated that the ACA was poised to increase the shortage of physicians by 8,000 by 2025 (4). Even current clinics have been forced to turn down 250 potential patients a day due to a lack of physicians causing sick persons to drive hours to find care (3). Compounding the problem, new physicians tend to shy away from the 60-hour weeks worked by their predecessors instead looking for a better work/life balance (2, 3).

All people utilize health care services at one point or another. All federal policies that intend to reform health care will affect the lives of all citizens. Currently the United States spends the highest amount on health care with the one of the lowest health outcomes compared other developed countries. In 2010, $8,233 per person was spent on health care, but with a life expectancy of 78.7 years (Kane, 2012). As a response to the high health care cost and low health care outcomes, President Obama signed into law the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), or most colloquially known as Obamacare. ACA was designed to address some of the issues that prevent people from receiving health insurance and transitioning from a privatized

The Affordable Care Act set forth millions of dollars to address the problems and concerns that are associated with existing physicians shortages. The Affordable Care Act also has provisions that are aimed to improve the education, ongoing training as well as to help with the recruitment of nursing, physicians, doctors as well as other health care personnel. In addition, there are provisions in place that help to increase workforces’ cultural competency, enhance faculty training of healthcare professionals, and diversity. The provisions also play a vital role because of the fact they are put into place to examine innovative reimbursement and care delivery models that highlight primary care services value and offer in improvement in the patient care coordination.

The overall health care industry has undergone fundamental change over the last decade. Most of the changes have occurred within the underlying business operation of the healthcare industry. Legislation in particular has had a profound impact on the health care industry. First, due to the Affordable Care Act of 2010, the nursing profession is undergoing a fundamental shift in regards to the patient experience. The U.S. health care system is now shifting the focus from acute and specialty care to that of primary care which requires a shift in business operations. Also, due primarily to that aging of the baby boomer generation, the need for primary car overall is shifting and will be needed heavily in the future. The last 10 years in particular has seen an increasing influx of retiring baby boomers that subsequently need care. A positive impact on the ACA legislation is that more individuals are now insured. As such, the need for primary care will also increase over subsequent years, particular within the minority population. This patient centric approach will require more care predicated on specific communities in a seamless manner. Furthermore, primary care physicians will be in high demand over the coming years.

The end of World War II in 1945 was the beginning of health care reform and the challenge to meet the needs of Americans throughout the next 62 yrs. With the war over, five major events helped changed and evolve the healthcare system it is today. These include the increase in hospitals after the war, the creation of Medicare and Medicaid, Health Maintenance Organization Act (HMO), Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA), and finally the Affordable Care Act (CMS, 2018).