Doctors battle physician shortage in Idaho
This year’s upcoming legislative session will have state lawmakers discussing one important topic – how to tackle the physician shortage throughout rural parts of the state.
The Hospital Cooperative’s executive director Robert Cuoio said although many medical students come into Idaho to carry-out their residency programs, the problem is that the state doesn’t have enough students who want to stay after it’s done.
“We don’t have a medical school, but we do have physicians who come in through the residency programs,” Cuoio said. “But, a lot of times they will go back to the state where they are from. So the key is to try and keep the ones going through the residency programs here.”
Cuoio said out of 44 counties, 40 are under-served when it comes to primary care. He said all 44 counties are under-served when it comes to mental health.
“There is a hospital down in Malad that, for the past couple of years, it has not had a physician at its hospital at all,” Cuoio said.
He said the problem is trying to find physicians willing to move to rural counties, because it’s getting to the point where physicians from bigger communities will have to travel out to these rural counties several days each week, if they have time.
Take Arco for example – Cuoio said there is only one physician for every 2,000 people, which exceeds the national ratio by double.
Cuoio has been consulting with the Idaho Medical Association to see what they can do to help this physician deficit in the state.
This year, the association will present a number of pieces of legislation to the legislature, including improvements to the WWAMI program and offering a loan repayment incentive for physicians willing to move to rural communities.
This means for every two years a physician is practicing in a rural community, they have the potential to earn between $20,000 and $50,000 toward repaying their student loans on top of what they are earning in the field.
You can see the list of 2015 IMA legislative reports here.
