Kentucky Needs 3,800 More Doctors Right Now - and Thousands More Next Year

It's one cause of both high health care costs and poor health outcomes in Kentucky that you rarely hear about: the severe shortage of doctors.

More doctors - thousands more doctors in Kentuckys - would ensure that everyone can get in to see a doctor when he or she needs to see a doctor, without having to wait weeks or drive hours.

More doctors - thousands more doctors in Kentucky - would mean competition for patients, which lowers costs.

Laura Unger at the Courier:

Kentucky needs 3,790 more doctors, including 183 additional primary care physicians, to meet current demand for care — and those numbers will grow when more Kentuckians get coverage through a Medicaid expansion and health benefit exchange under health reform.

Those are some of the findings in a workforce capacity study report by Deloitte Consulting that was the subject of a briefing Wednesday held by the state Cabinet for Health and Family Services.


The report is scheduled to be made available on the Kentucky Health Benefit Exchange website next week.

The report looked at the state’s longstanding shortages of health care providers, particularly in rural areas, and made recommendations to increase the state’s health workforce.


They include two controversial proposals — supporting the idea of allowing nurse practitioners to prescribe non-scheduled drugs without having a written agreement with a doctor, and evaluating the possibility of changing statutes related to medical malpractice caps.

 It's hard to attract doctors to a state that throws them in jail for relieving a patient's pain.

Not to mention a state that values corporate tax breaks and worshipping Big Coal above education, economic growth and environmental protection.