Physician Workforce Trends And Their Implications For Spending Growth

Controlling the growth rate of health care spending is central to the success of the Affordable Care Act or any subsequent reform. Because labor represents more than 50 percent of health care costs and the clinical workforce drives use and prices, the size and composition of the health care workforce has important ramifications for spending growth. We set out to understand the trends underlying the growth in the clinical workforce and their potential implications for health care spending, health policy, and health system design. A large literature establishes a link between primary care–oriented health systems and lower spending. Areas with a higher concentration of primary care physicians have much lower spending per beneficiary, higher-quality care, better patient satisfaction, and lower mortality rates. Given this, many existing payment reform strategies prioritize primary care, and the success of these reforms will require a vibrant—and likely growing—primary care workforce. How The Physician Workforce Has Changed To observe the evolution of the clinical workforce, we used the Bureau of Labor Statistics’ Occupational Employment Statistics files between 2005 and 2015. This data set is released in May of each year and records the number of jobs (not the number of full-time–equivalent employees) by industry, occupational type, and geography. Using the North American Industry Classification System (NAICS), we limited our analysis to NAICS 621 (ambula...
Source: Health Affairs Blog - Category: Health Management Authors: Tags: Costs and Spending Featured Health Professionals Organization and Delivery nurse practitioners physician’s assistants Primary Care Source Type: blogs