Rural physicians are first of all, primary care physicians. More importantly they are family physicians. The nation depends on family physicians like no other specialty to meet the needs of underserved populations. These physicians are the foundation of rural care in small towns. The provide over $360,000 in local economic impact and 18 jobs for small towns (Doeksen OSU). New jobs cannot locate in small towns without good quality local health care. Each primary care physician brings in 1.25 million in revenues to the local hospital (Merritt Hawkins study), this may be more in rural areas with higher inpatient loads. The economic impact of a single doctor from outpatient and inpatient practice is nearly 2 million dollars in local economic impact (KY Center for Rural Health). 1 million from OK and MN studies is a more reasonable figure. For other studies on economic impact, see By the numbers
Physicians also are town leaders and a critical element of the cadre of young professionals who will retain other young professionals for jobs, economic impact and leadership.
Many medical school leaders will tell you that the reason that there are few doctors that are locating in small towns is that the economy of small towns is poor. Clearly the reason that many small towns suffer from poor economies is that medical schools have not been selecting and training the people that will become rural physicians. Rabinowitz and others have documented this scientifically and published these results in the leading journals. The Jefferson PSAP program has pumped over 100 million dollars into rural Pennsylvania in a study that included just the 1978-1991 graduates of the program. Jack Verby developed the RPAP program in Minnesota with $800,000 of legislative funds each year, but the total economic impact of RPAP in rural Minnesota is already over 1 billion dollars and growing each year in practice impact alone. If you include hospital economic impact on the patients admitted by the physician, the impact is 2 million per graduate per year.
RPAP has impacted Greater MN at 7 billion in economic impact
since 1971 at a cost of only 24 million dollars.
Rural physicians are first of all, primary care physicians. More importantly they are family physicians. The nation depends on family physicians like no other specialty to meet the needs of underserved populations. These physicians are the foundation of rural care in small towns. The provide over $360,000 in local economic impact and 17 jobs for small towns (Doeksen). New jobs cannot locate in small towns without good quality local health care. Physicians also are town leaders. Many medical school leaders will tell you that the reason that there are few doctors that are locating in small towns is that the economy of small towns is poor. Clearly the reason that many small towns suffer from poor economies is that medical schools have not been selecting and training the people that will become rural physicians. Rabinowitz and others have documented this scientifically and published these results in the leading journals. The Jefferson PSAP program has pumped over 100 million dollars into rural Pennsylvania in a study that included just the 1978-1991 graduates of the program. Jack Verby developed the RPAP program in Minnesota with $800,000 of legislative funds each year, but the total economic impact of RPAP in rural Minnesota is already over 1 billion dollars and growing each year.
The economic impact of rural medical education has long been ignored. Rural programs in Nebraska provide nearly 10 FTE annually in rural rotations and rural training tracks, not including locums and moonlighting of residents. This means 3.8 million in economic impact a year to rural Nebraska. Students in long term preceptorships such as the Rural Physician Associate Program also support the rural practices for an additional $2 million in economic impact each year (40 students x .2 FTE). Studies of longer term students demonstrate a break even after 4 months in rural practices, with benefits continuing in the additional months spent in rural practices (Rural and Remote Health, Winter 2001). Previous studies only looked at time spent and did not examine other benefits of preceptorships for the preceptor.
If medical leaders ignore these results, then rural people (and medical leaders) will continue to face the consequences of their actions.
Top Priorities For More Rural Docs
