Farzan Bharucha, a health care strategist with consulting firm Kurt Salmon, says the ACA should have focused more on the primary care shortage "because we already knew there was a problem -- and we knew implementation of ACA would potentially make it worse."
Health and Human Services spokeswoman Erin Shields Britt says continuing to build the primary care workforce will take time, but she notes President Obama's budget working its way through Congress has several new ways to expand the primary care workforce, which includes nurse practitioners and pediatricians. The ACA, she says, significantly increases the number of primary care providers in underserved areas and increases Medicare and Medicaid payment for services delivered by primary care practitioners.
ACA funding that added 600 new primary care residencies was part of a five-year investment that expires at the end of 2015, eliminating the chance to produce hundreds more doctors each year.
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| Seeing a real live doctor one-on-one, will become like encountering a Dodo Bird |
But many agree far more needs to be done. Among the issues:
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• Scope of practice laws. States regulate and license doctors and have been slow to embrace the idea that non-physicians could take over some of the functions. Nurse practitioners and physician assistants should be performing vaccinations and strep tests, Bharucha says...Read the full story HERE.
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