Massachusetts Medical Law Report Blog

Across the state, the primary care shortage in Massachusetts seems to be only getting worse.

We’ve all been reading about the issue for months, even years. But it was only recently that I saw the challenges we face firsthand.

In my column in the Summer 2008 issue of Massachusetts Medical Law Report, I tell the tale of my own search for a primary care doctor … which was even tougher than I ever dreamed it could be for the editor of a medical-legal newspaper for doctors in a place with such a significant number of skilled physicians. (See “One editor’s search for primary care.”)

And then today, I saw an extensive article in the Berkshire Eagle detailing the sad state of primary care affairs in Western Mass.:

“As America is living longer, gaining weight and confronting more complicated health problems like diabetes, primary care doctors are fleeing the field. Practicing doctors are retiring younger, studies show, and medical students are choosing better-paying specialties,” the Eagle reports.

And Dr. Bruce Auerbach, president of the Massachusetts Medical Society, is quoted as saying that Western Mass. is experiencing perhaps the worst crisis in primary care of all the areas in the state.

Why the worsening crisis? In the article, primary care doctors say they are increasingly stretched to see more patients in the same amount of time, with lower reimbursements and more regulations. Fewer med students are interested in primary care because the salaries are lower than those of specialists.

Meanwhile, insurers are trying to think of new ways to solve the rising tide of health care costs, such as “tiering,” which health care professionals generally oppose.
How can we solve this conflict and maintain the health of our Commonwealth if there aren’t enough primary care doctors?

Surely, there is something we can do, isn’t there?

The Eagle article struck me because it suggests one thing my optimistic self has been afraid to consider: Is there a fleeting chance we can’t solve it?