America’s Looming Doctor Shortage: What the Numbers Really Show

Erik Sunset: [00:00:00] All right, we’re back. Hello everybody. I’m your host of the DocBuddy journal, Erik, this is episode one 14, episode 114, so this is your first time watching. Thanks for joining us for the first time if you’ve been around. Thanks for coming back. We’re always glad to have you listening or watching or otherwise enjoying the DocBuddy journal ’cause yes, there is a third option you might be reading along on the transcript on our site DocBuddy.com.

That wouldn’t be how I would consume the shows, but you certainly can. And with it being the latter part of January. I wanna be sure that everybody is staying warm out there. Lots of snow and ice happening across the country right now, and even those of us in South Florida are feeling a little bit cooler than usual.

Not cold, it’s all relative. Not cold, but a little bit cooler than usual. We’re getting [00:01:00] our sort of little taste of winter, uh, for the year right now, and then it’ll be right back to uh, uh, the tropical climbs we’re all used to. So on last week’s show, I, uh, made a commitment to you all at the audience. It would be providing a little bit more.

Concentrated value, maybe a little bit less of a winding road when it’s a show that has just me and, uh, and no guests on it. So, um, I want to hold true to that. Today, we’re gonna see if we like the format. It’s not gonna be super different than what we’ve been doing, but it will be a little bit different, uh, a little bit more of a snack size podcast when I don’t have a guest.

Um, and you know that that’s just a grab bag depending on how our guests slot in their availability. It depends on when they, uh, when we publish that episode rather. Uh, so there’s not a whole lot of science to it. Uh, but all that to say, I want to provide really distilled value, uh, when it’s a solo show like this one [00:02:00] is.

So let’s get on with it. The topic for today is the physician workforce under pressure. From shortage to strategy and for the last year or so, listeners of the doc web journal will know. I’ve talked a lot about the shortage of physicians. Now we all are aware of the anesthesiologist shortage, uh, but the news, the mainstream media is not necessarily talking about the upcoming shortage of physicians.

I finally came across some data that quantifies exactly how much of a shortcoming we’re going to have here before too long, and basically by 2030. And this reporting is from Medicus Health Solutions. They are a locum tenants provider and expert. We thank them for their fantastic content today. If you’re listening out there any Medicus Health Solutions employees.

Would love to [00:03:00] have you on so we could talk about your data, um, a little bit more. Uh, but in the absence of that, we’ll fly through it. The reporting starts with a pretty sobering stat. The US is projected to face a shortage of 127,620 full-time equivalent physicians by 2030.

The article continues. The physician shortage is reshaping how healthcare leaders think about access, capacity, and workforce strategy. With demand continuing to outpace physician availability, organizations are being forced to address not only immediate coverage gaps, but long-term sustainability. And we’ve talked about that.

I won’t say, I won’t keep saying that. We’ve talked about that, but we have, we’ve talked about this at length. And if you’re following along on the reporting, you can get a link to the article in the description of the show, whether you’re on YouTube, Spotify, or Apple Pod. So if you’re [00:04:00] following along, there’s a chart called Physician Supply and Demand Trend, uh, where here in 2026, we’re already seeing that one in 10 physician roles that are needed.

Are not filled. And the demand line on this line chart as opposed to supply the demand line is that really steady. You know, you remember this from middle school or or high school math rise overrun. That’s a very consistent slope. Y equals mx plus B. It is a positive slope line. So that is telling us that demand is not expected to decrease.

Um, in fact, it is expected to increase every year from here on out while as the supply of physicians is a relatively flat, uh, line on this chart, it’s sort of parabolic, a little bit of a smiley face. Um, but we are in the lowest point of physician supply according to this article, until we get to [00:05:00] 2028, where we’re back up on the ever so slight upswing.

Continuing to quantify this physician shortage. Uh, the physician workforce, workforce and job growth projections are also fairly dour. Uh, currently there are over 1 million physicians in the us. The workforce distribution and availability vary significantly by specialty and region. Duh. Um, looking ahead, physician employment is expected to grow steadily.

In fact, the US Bureau of Labor Statistics Projects 3% job growth from 2024 to 2034, translating to roughly another 24,300 openings over the next decade. As demand continues to rise, and when you look at the charts, the very nice, uh, chart, by the way of the distribution of physicians across the United States.

Um, this is not gonna be a huge surprise. Population centers for just general [00:06:00] Americans are where there are more physicians as opposed to less so California, Texas, Florida, New York. Lots and lots and lots of people. Lots and lots of physicians there. Um, then as you get into the more sparsely populated states, your Mississippis, your West Virginias, your Montana, Idaho.

Uh, Nebraska and Dakota’s, uh, sort of states like that. There are just quite obviously going to be less physicians because there are less people there that will need their services. Continuing on, uh, the article calls out a couple key drivers for, uh, factors contributing to the physician shortage. Uh, obviously part of this is an aging population and their increased demand for healthcare services.

Uh, the article states that demographic shifts, shifts, particularly the aging population, remain one of the many primary drivers behind the increasing demand for physicians. Here’s a couple quick, did you knows, did you know one in five Americans will be [00:07:00] over the age of 65 by 2030? So 20% of our population will be over 65 in the next four years.

Whoa, here’s another one. Did you know that by 2034 adults 65 and older will account for 42% of physician demand? Probably makes sense. It’s probably about right. Uh, did you know that hospitalizations are rising due to this aging population? In 2025, there were 36.2 million hospitalizations, and in 2035, so looking ahead 10 years.

There’re expected to be 40.2 million hospitalizations, so an additional 4 million, uh, hospitalizations in 2035 over 2025. Much of this increased demand is driven by the high prevalence of disease among older adults with 93% living with at least one chronic condition, and that’s according to the CDC, [00:08:00] uh, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

That is absolutely bananas. High prevalence of disease among older adults with 93% living with at least one chronic condition.

Unbelievable. So as this article continues, an aging physician workforce implications for future capacity, rising care demands from an aging population are converging with an aging workforce, intensifying physician shortages. Uh, here’s another. Did you know that 42% of active physicians are expected to reach retirement age within the next decade?

And we’ve talked about this so many times, physicians are retiring earlier than their retirement age. They’re leaving the profession outright earlier than their retirement age. There is, uh, said differently. Something wicked this [00:09:00] way comes on the physician, uh, uh, the profession of being a physician. So nearly half of the physician workforce expected to retire over the next decade.

And rising demand from an aging population, the resulting supply demand imbalance is likely to intensify, creating greater operational strain for healthcare teams and organizations. Uh, so what do you do to fix that? You know, that’s been the million dollar question every time that we’ve discussed it here, uh, on the DocBuddy journal with you dear audience.

So when you look at one of the key choke points. Uh, there are limited training opportunities and a supply and demand mismatch. So despite the modest growth in residency positions, the gap between the number of applicants and available training slots persist. So in 2000, there was just about 34,000 total applicants to, uh, 20,000 total, uh, PGY dash [00:10:00] one positions.

And those are gonna be your residency training slots in 2010. So skipping ahead 10 years, there was just about 40,000 applicants for 25 or so thousand slots. And then flash forward to 2025. There’s over 50,000 applicants for only 40,000 slots. So this is again, that classic slope chart where everything is going up, but it’s not going up how you want it to.

That applications, excuse me, applicants are up, up, up, up and up. But the availability of open training slots or residency slots, it’s going up as well, but it’s not catching up to the number of applicants. So that’s kind of the sick thing with this physician shortage is that. People want to be physicians, but they’re unable to get the training that they need to, uh, become one.

Yeah, it’s not as, uh, it’s much more complicated and nuanced than that, but that’s what this data bears out. Uh, [00:11:00] so actionable strategies. What are you gonna do about it? Here’s a little bit more about what are you gonna do, or here’s some ideas from the authors of the article. So, investing in care team model.

Integrating advanced practice providers, care team models that integrate advanced practice providers or apps offer a scalable strategy to expand capacity without overextending physicians. So the benefits of care team models, excuse me. Number one is that you expand access by leveraging apps to see more patients.

I think a lot of places are already doing that, and it’s not that you. Necessarily need to see more patients. It’s that you need to have coverage to treat them. You’re streamlining routine and follow up patient care. Technology comes to mind on that one. You’re maximizing time for more complex cases and procedures.

Yep. Where you’re, where you’re able to, where you don’t need a crystal ball to know that. Reduce burnout and balance workloads. Again, staffing remains the number one driver of [00:12:00] burnout, uh, in this, in these post COVID years. So it’s easier said than done on a lot of these, uh, stabilized service lines where physician staffing is limited strength and continuity through team-based care and control costs by aligning care with provider scope.

So the article suggests that by distributing care tax tasks across a multidisciplinary team, care team models enhance patient throughput, maintain clinical quality, and enable physicians to focus on higher acuity or procedure-based care. And then it wraps up with, uh, prioritizing culture to strengthen recruitment and retention.

We’ve talked about that many, many times as well. Uh, culture is huge. Um, especially for our friends in the ASC where you’re competing directly head to head with the hospital for, uh, out of the same pool of potential employees. So I, I like, I like all the, the data and all the facts that this article gives you.

Um, I’m not totally convinced the actionable [00:13:00] strategies fix. Well, I, I should be fair to the article, they’re talking about navigating the physician shortage, not necessarily fixing it. Uh, so yes, the suggestions to navigate the physician shortage are all well and good, but that doesn’t, you know, ultimately there needs to be a systemic, uh, fix here.

Um, the data that we covered around applicant’s for residency positions. Um, and that those residency positions are never going to catch up to the number of applicants. That’s obviously a problem. So we’re kind of like, we kind of have a self-inflicted error here that you have folks that want to be physicians but can’t, due to lack of training.

But there’s also some broader stuff. The fights being fought against commercial insurance every day of the week. That’s a problem. Uh, Medicare reimbursement rates, that’s a problem. You need to get more of the. In my opinion, you need to restore the glamor and allure work with me here. That’s what’s coming to [00:14:00] mind.

The glamor and the allure of being a physician, you know, somebody respected in the community, somebody that wants to help people, somebody that’s very smart, very wise, uh, in the ways of science. That’s a very, uh, niche reference for my Monty Python listeners or viewers out there. Uh, but all that to say fantastic to finally have, uh, some data around this.

And it did kind of fall in my lap. We could have gotten this sooner if we wanted it. Um, just to read this back to you, the US is projected to face a shortage of 127,620 full-time equivalent physicians by 2030. That’s four years from now, and this is over 10% of the million physicians that were referenced in the call we’re gonna be short, over 10%.

Uh, at today’s current levels of demand, and obviously the Bureau of Labor sta Statistics says that the job is gonna grow. There’ll be more openings, but something’s gotta give. Right. And that’s a really nice segue as we wrap up our [00:15:00] episode, that for physicians who need to do more with less time than they’ve ever had.

I would highly recommend that you direct your internet browser to DocBuddy.com so we can show you all of our provider documentation solutions that eliminate painful workflows. Um, our integrated EHR integrated apps give you instant documentation. We reduce administrative work and accelerate your claims process, whether you’re providing care at the practice, on call at the hospital, or performing surgery at the surgery center.

Again, that’s DocBuddy.com. Take a look at all of our solutions from our ai ambient listening, uh, AI notes app, all the way to our op note. Instant operative reports, uh, application. Uh, we’ve got something for you. No matter what specialty you are, no matter where you provide care, we want to help you beat burnout and do more with less than you’ve ever had.

So until next time, we wanna thank you for listening. I’ve been your host, Erik Sunset. This was episode one [00:16:00] 14 of the DocBuddy Journal. Be sure you’re subscribed on Apple Podcast, Spotify, and YouTube. So always get the newest episodes of the show. And until next time, we’ll talk to you soon. Take care.