The Federal government is predicting that there will be a serious shortage of physicians trained to treat life threatening medical illnesses in the intensive care unit in the near future.
The federal government predicted Monday that the supply of doctors who specialize in treating critically ill patients probably won’t keep up with the demand of the country’s aging population.
That’s important, some groups say, because more doctors with such expertise could help save lives and money.
Critical care doctors, or intensivists, make up an evolving specialty, and one of the newest specialties to be certified under the American Board of Medical Specialties. About 2,000 such doctors specialize in treating patients in the nation’s intensive care units.
In 2003, Congress asked the Health Resources and Services Administration to analyze whether the country would have enough critical care doctors. The agency projected two demand scenarios. Under the lowest projection, the expected supply of 2,800 critical care doctors in 2020 would meet demand.
But the agency said that scenario is unlikely. More hospitals are expected to increasingly staff their ICUs with critical care doctors. A larger percentage of ICU patients are likely to be seen by critical care doctors. As a result, 4,300 such doctors may be needed by 2020.
Okay, so now that the geniuses in Washington D.C. have finally figured out that we’re going to have a serious shortage of critical care physicians, what are they going to do about it?
The government agency said lawmakers may want to establish some financial incentives to attract and retain more critical care doctors. It said financial recommendations went beyond the scope of the report, but some groups have called for more money for training. They also have called for expanding the J-1Visa Waiver program, which would let more foreign doctors practice in the United States, and they have called for an expansion of the National Health Service Corps, which pays for health professional’s education in exchange for work in underserved areas.
So this government agency has no real understanding of why this shortage of critical care doctors is occurring, and what to do about it. They’ve passed the buck to Congress to devise some “financial incentives” to encourage more doctors to choose this field. Unfortunately, the financial incentives discussed in this article don’t address the root causes behind the shortage, which are falling levels of reimbursement by Medicare, and the crisis in many states regarding the medical malpractice enviornment. Doctors will not be willing to take care of critically ill patients until they are compensated better for all their hard work, and don’t have to worry about being sued for every poor outcome that occurs. And, in the intensive care unit, there are a lot of bad outcomes. It’s just par for the course. My prediction is that none of these issues will be addressed, and the government will increase the number of foreign trained doctors to take up the slack. And all this will do is lower the quality of care that one receives in the ICU if one is unfortunate enough to wind up there.
