Reasons for the Shortage of Physicians and Healthcare Professionals

It takes a long time to increase the supply of health care professionals. Health care costs were soon rising rapidly. As a result, health care expenditures as a percent of GDP increased from 5 percent to 16 percent (Finkelstein, 2005)

While the demand of healthcare need increasers the United States facing a physician shortage. In recent years the number of nurse practitioners (NPs) and physician assistants (PAs) has significantly increased and they are taking the part in providing healthcare cervices to the majority of patients. I believe nurse practitioners and physician assistants can practice independently from doctors and be free of oversight. Expanding the scope of NPs and PAs is essential to overcome the healthcare crisis we are facing; it will increase patient satisfaction and stabilizing the healthcare economy.

Society may not realize that a shortage of health care professionals is problematic. The main thing will encounter a negative impact is the service and quality of treatment. Organizations that operates with minimal staff cannot adequately care for the patients. Once care begins to decline, then they will start to lose consumers that will negatively impact profits. Health care facilities with limited staff will have to use contract employee to cover the patient load. While this may be a way to handle the shortage it hurts the finances of the company since they will have to pay the contractors more than they would an employee. Working overtime in moderation is ok however it cannot be the mode to fix staff shortages as it will cause the organization

- Internally, the medical profession has been weakened through an oversupply of doctors and the fragmentation and lack of success in resisting government controls of its labor union. Because health

This article posted on the CNN website was written by Michael Nedelman on March 14, 2017. This article discusses the current and anticipated shortage of doctors in the health care industry. It specifically talks about causers of the shortage, which include recent health care and immigration policies. The 1997 Balanced Budget Act limits the fundings of trainings doctors receive after medical school. The twist to this issue is that even though medical school enrollment has jumped by 27% over the last several years, it did not result in 27% more being trained. This is both because the number of international students entering the program went down, and the number of the US graduates who were not accepted went up.

I believe that there is a shortage of nurses in the United States and in other counties throughout the world. There is a big shortage of nurses and healthcare workers in the nursing home where I worked at. To solve the problem of the nursing shortage, management hired travel nurses to come into the facility to work. I think travel nurses can be helpful in some ways and hurtful in other ways. Staff at the nursing home gave the travel nurses a hard time because they were getting paid more money for the same job. Another problem with the travel nurses was that they rarely showed up to work and called off often. I think that one way to keep travel nurses from calling off or not showing up is to have them sign a contract. Although, most traveling nurses sign a contract, my facility did not have signed contract nurses come in.

More than a quarter of the world’s countries do not have enough health care workers. The world needs 4 million new health workers to address global workforce shortages. The urgency to address the health care worker crisis is a challenge for all high-, middle- and low -income countries alike. Health care worker shortages affect Germany and the USA, just like they affect India or Uganda. Western countries ‘import’ workers from developing countries, because they are also short of trained health workers. Aging populations are exacerbating the problem (Global Health Workforce Alliance, 2013).

When examined with a short-term or a long-term view, the health care industry expected to be a solid and growing source of employment in the coming months and through the next decade, (Healthcare, 2010). As chief of legal the challenge of staff shortage is to ensure employees retention through programs and recognition and tracking individual success “small things make a difference” like nurses week with the give of gifts such as proving a breakfast of making the staff feel their appreciated for all the things they do in delivering high patient care. Although, it is important for the organization to understand employees need special recognition, this set the standard they their hard work does not go unnoticed. Customer is the main success

My father, for instance, has to plan his dermatology appointment six months in advance, his kidney appointments are scheduled three months out, and his primary care physician only sees Medicare patients two days a week in the late afternoons. My mother fractured her foot over the summer and recently has had difficulty walking on it again. I will be calling her gimpy for the next two weeks; the first available appointment available to her to receive treatment, emphasizing the many struggles that doctors face trying to keep their medical practices afloat by milking the insurance systems and lowering the standard of care provided to their patients. Specialty doctors, such as OBGYN’s, who have to endure the never ending increases of liability insurance, drown, opting to close their offices. These closures limit the patient’s choices resulting in overcrowding and long wait times. Instead of closing their practice or struggling with revolving door of clients, some doctors transition into the field of science and research or teaching medicine (Malpractice Cost).

The major protocol of this paper is to find out the various approaches to overcoming the shortage of primary care physicians in the US. There are different reasons why this has happened, yet one thing's for sure: With the increasingly old population, the issue is just going to deteriorate. After all, it might appear to be peculiar at the first look when you consider that such many individuals apply to medical school to become doctors and that the quantity of medical graduates is at an unequaled high. So why the lack? (Rosenblat & Hart, 2000).

There is a critical gap between the demand for health care personnel and the supply of their services. This is an acute issue facing the citizens, governments and policy makers internationally and could have dire consequences if the situation is not dealt with the urgency and importance it demands. There are a myriad of factors causing this shortage in health care personnel. It ranges from migration of trained personnel from developing countries to developed countries to being over-worked to inadequate healthcare management. The reasons for migration range vary from lack of stability and safety of living conditions to a dearth of adequate training opportunities for healthcare personnel.

Barriers associated with borders in a global market that allows easier access for richer countries to attract health care workers has a direct impact on the flow of health care (Packer, Labonté & Spitzer 2007, p. 21). Many countries are experiencing the effect of a shortage of trained physicians and nurses and have resulted in the use of foreign-trained health professionals to fill gaps (care (Packer, Labonté & Spitzer 2007, p. 15). Attempts have been made to continue the flow of health care workers as oppose to the lack of. Evidence points to factors that the flow from richer to poorer countries are prevalent based on factors relating to the overflow of health care workers in richer countries (Packer et al., n.d.). The poorer countries are entertained with diminished health care access resulting from the overflow or health care workers in richer countries. These diminished health care services are also triggered by the lack of professional credentials across borders where free trade areas are recognized (Packer et al., n.d.).

Another risk connected with the globalization of health care is a brain drain from developing countries. The globalization of the labor market for health care professionals has major implications for individual practitioners, for health care systems, and for governments. Fast-growing demand for health care services in developed countries results in a shortage of health care professionals in those countries and causes recruitment of professionals from underdeveloped countries. The immigration policy of some rich countries as the USA, Ireland, the UK,

The main destinations are USA, UK, Canada and Australia, where approximately 20% of the physicians are from low- and middle-income nations (Edge & Hoffman). Dodani & Laporte (2005) argue that most of health workers go abroad to conclude specialization and postgraduate courses in the recipient country.

“The Philippines has provided the world with skilled medical professionals for decades. But as more and more workers abandon the Philippines for higher salaries abroad, public health experts say the country 's health care system is on the brink of collapse.” - Dr. Jaime Galvez Tan