Annual salaries for a family physician after years of study and thousands of tuition dollars is less than what a plumber makes in most parts of the country. Overhead costs and frustrating health insurance reimbursement policies are making it almost impossible for a family practitioner to survive.
This spring, 385 students graduated from Georgia’s medical schools, but only two of them chose to remain in the state to pursue a family medicine residency. Overall, 20 students, or 5 percent, chose to go into family medicine — half the number that it was just five years ago.
“The decline in the percentage of medical school graduates entering family medicine is cause for concern,” said Kelly McNamara, research and analysis manager at the Georgia Board for Physician Workforce.
“Family medicine physicians often serve as the primary health-care providers in their communities because of their ability to care for patients of all ages and to treat a variety of medical conditions,” McNamara said.
More than one-third, or 58 of 159 counties in the state, many of them rural, are officially designated as primary-care health professional shortage areas. This designation, from the Health Resources and Services Administration, means that, on average, there is less than 1 doctor for 3,500 people. About 1.5 million people in the state are affected by the shortage of doctors.
