What might a good solution be to the General Practitioner Shortage in the US?

[Starport Seven-Five]

Reduce cost of schooling, make health insurance companies obsolete, get rid of regional healthcare conglomerates, reform malpractice insurance, etc.

The American healthcare system has been a mess for a while and it seems to only be getting worse. I can see why less people are going that direction.

 

[VandVsmama]

In the US General Practitioners are the gateway to mental health care, many specialists and all sorts of other kinds of medical care. We have Urgent Care all over the place but since Urgent Care does not do followup of any kind they are't there to offer ongoing care for things like Depression etc or ongoing issues while a person waits to get into a specialist which can take months.

One of my adult children has been trying to get into a Primary Care - General Practitioner in Boston for over 2 years, yep, two years. I just spoke with someone in office staff who tole me there is a hold because so many retired during Covid and no new students want to go into the area. I just found an article saying the biggest system in the area was full back in 2023, https://www.nbcboston.com/news/loca...-accepting-new-primary-care-patients/3191270/ seems like nothing has changed which is scary still not taking patients. This is a big city with countless new residents, students and just just a massive a flux of humans so how can it be no-one is available to see people, not to mention some serious social issues with a substance abuse and homelessness in play

How can the US or struggling cities or states coax students into Primary Care? My best guess is to grant them student loan forgiveness if they commit for 5-10 years. Maybe another option is the laws change requiring Urgent Care to do follow-up? Maybe some states have made progress or brainstormed something because yikes, this needs to be remedied, the situation is terrible.

Some info & thoughts to consider:

• there's a federal program called the Public Service Loan Forgiveness program. Info available about it at https://students-residents.aamc.org/financial-aid-resources/public-service-loan-forgiveness-pslf. Requires an application.
• Some states have their own similar program. Arizona (where I live) has one and it applies to several types of healthcare jobs. Not only MD/DO's, but nurses, NPs, PAs, dentists, pharmacists, psychologists. https://www.azdhs.gov/documents/pre...ams/loan-repayment/arizona-loan-repayment.pdf
• Indian Health Service (IHS) also has a healthcare loan forgiveness program. https://www.ihs.gov/loanrepayment/
• Some COUNTIES might even have specific programs like this, too.
• Many healthcare systems are switching to use more NPs and PA's for primary care.
• The medical practice specialty of "General Practitioner" is kind of going away. You're more likely to find someone similar to this by going with an MD/DO whose specialty is Family Practice or Internal Medicine.
• Laws requiring an urgent care facility to do follow up isn't going to fix the problem. Urgent care is not meant to be used as ongoing care. What you'd end up doing is clogging up urgent care facilities so much that people with an ear infection will end up going to the ER instead and then ER wait times will go up more than they already are.