Doctor Shortage Looms in 2025

An association that represents medical schools and teaching hospitals estimates that the U.S. will be short by as many as 90, 000 physicians by 2025. “The doctor shortage is real—it’s significant—and it’s particularly serious for the kind of medical care that our aging population is going to need, ” said Darrell G. Kirch, M.D., president and CEO of the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), in an announcement about the study findings.

Officials of the AAMC say that this is the first comprehensive analysis that takes into account both demographics and recent changes in health care delivery and methods of payment. In a breakdown of the estimate, researchers believe that the country will need from 12, 000 to 31, 000 primary care doctors and 26, 000 to 63, 000 non-primary care physicians.

Among the key findings is the fact that expanded medical coverage brought about by the Affordable Care Act will probably increase demand by about 16, 000 to 17, 000 physicians. The growing role played by advanced practice nurses will not fill the gap, they report. Instead they write that the health care industry could absorb 114, 900 additional nurses into the system. The same, they write, is true of physician assistants.

“Because educating a doctor takes between five and ten years, we must act now, in 2015, if we are going to avoid serious physician shortages in 2025, ” Kirch said in an announcement.