New Mexico has been facing a shortage of thousands of health care workers for years, and during a presentation to lawmakers last week, the Legislative Finance Committee said it will be even worse five years from now.
LFC Analyst Harry Rommel said over the last few years the state has been short on average about 5,000 healthcare workers total, including nurses, physicians, physical therapists, nursing assistants and more. But by 2030, he said, the state will need more than 8,000 registered nurses and licensed practicing nurses alone.
On the bright side, Rommell said, “sophisticated” computer modeling predicts there will be a surplus of physician assistants and nurse practitioners, which could help alleviate the more than 1200 needed physicians across a range of specialties.
“We're going to need Family Medicine, physicians, internal medicines, geriatric physicians,” he said, “but with that surplus of nurse practitioners and physician assistants that is projected – an estimate, again, not a guarantee – that could alleviate some of our primary care physician shortage.”
However, that might not alleviate the general nursing shortage, as nurse practitioners often diagnose illnesses, order tests, and prescribe medications as physicians do.
He says the state has already seen an increase in the proportion of both NPs and PAs.
“Why is that? Well, it's easier to become an NP or a PA than it is to become a primary care physician,” Rommel said. “It's quicker, less debt, and the return on your investment is probably better, because primary care is a difficult field to get in as a physician.”
The state has been working to address the health care worker shortage over recent years with everything from increased provider pay, to student loan forgiveness. But advocates say one of the biggest barriers is the cost of malpractice insurance in the state.
New Mexico has the second highest rate of medical malpractice insurance in the nation, which has not only been discouraging providers from moving into the state, but also forcing some to leave.
The LFC’s most recent data comes from a variety of both state and federal sources including the National Provider Identifier database, the Bureau of Health Workforce, both Medicaid and private insurance reports, the Bureau of Labor Statistics and the state Department of Workforce Solutions.
The shortages were calculated using federal benchmarks for provider adequacy.
Support for this coverage comes from the W.K. Kellogg Foundation.
