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Physician Survey: Health Reform May Lead to Significant Reduction in Physician Workforce

What if nearly half of all physicians in America stopped practicing medicine? While a sudden loss of half of the nations physicians seems unlikely, a very dramatic decrease in the physician workforce could become a reality as an unexpected side effect of health reform.

The Medicus Firm, a national physician search firm based in Dallas and Atlanta, conducted a survey of over 1,000 physicians to determine their expectations as to the impact of health reform on their practices, income, job satisfaction, and future career plans. In discussing career plans as part of the recruitment process, physicians have increasingly expressed apprehension and uncertainty regarding health reform’s impact on their practices, and The Medicus Firm wished to investigate this trend further. Additionally, the firm wanted to determine how doctors anticipate health reform to affect physician supply and the quality of medical care nationwide, as these are issues that will directly influence the physician recruiting industry. These factors are in addition to health reform’s more obvious impact on patients and providers of health care services. A total of 1,195 physicians from various specialties and career levels in locations nationally completed the survey.1

The results from the survey, entitled “Physician Survey: Health Reform’s Impact on Physician Supply and Quality of Medical Care,” were intriguing, particularly in light of the most recently published career projections from the Bureau of Labor Statistics (BLS). The BLS predicts a more than a 22 percent increase in physician jobs during the ten-year period ending in 2018. This places physician careers in the top 20 fastest-growing occupations from 2008 to 2018. Meanwhile, nearly one-third of physicians responding to the survey indicated that they will want to leave medical practice after health reform is implemented.

“What many people may not realize is that health reform could impact physician supply in such a way that the quality of health care could suffer,” said Steve Marsh, managing partner at The Medicus Firm in Dallas. “The reality is that there may not be enough doctors to provide quality medical care to the millions of newly insured patients.”

It’s probably not likely that nearly half of the nation’s physicians will suddenly quit practicing at once. However, even if a much smaller percentage such as ten, 15, or 20 percent are pushed out of practice over several years at a time when the field needs to expand by over 20 percent, this would be severely detrimental to the quality of the health care system. Based on the survey results, health reform could, over time, prove to be counterproductive, in that it could decrease patients’ access to medical care while the objective is to improve access.

Read the whole article:
http://www.nejmjobs.org/rpt/health-reform-may-reduce-physician-workforce.aspx