America’s Doctor Shortage: How Deep the Crisis Runs in 2026
The United States is experiencing a physician workforce crisis that is no longer a distant projection — it is the daily reality for millions of patients who wait weeks for appointments, drive hours to reach a specialist, or forgo care entirely because no doctor is available within a reasonable distance. The most authoritative national data comes from two major sources published in 2024 and 2025 that have fundamentally reset the parameters of the debate. The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) projects a total national shortage of between 13,500 and 86,000 physicians by 2036, with surgical specialties accounting for as much as 74% of that total shortfall — between 10,000 and 19,900 surgeons alone. The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), through its National Center for Health Workforce Analysis (NCHWA), published projections in December 2025 using a longer time horizon and reached starkly higher numbers, projecting a total shortage of 124,180 physicians by 2027, rising to 167,030 by 2032 and 187,130 by 2037, with primary care and rural areas expected to bear the greatest burden. These projections differ because they use different methodologies and assumptions — but both agree on the direction: the US is training, retaining, and deploying far fewer physicians than its growing and ageing population will need. As of today, April 14, 2026, there are already 8,467 designated primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) in the United States, covering a population of approximately 92.3 million people — up from 7,718 HPSAs in 2024 — with only 48.1% of those communities’ primary care needs being met. The gap between what exists and what is needed is not theoretical; it is a designation on a federal map covering more than a quarter of the American people.
Three forces are converging to produce this shortage simultaneously and reinforce each other. The aging of the American population is accelerating demand: by 2034, the number of Americans age 65 and older is expected to outnumber children under 18 for the first time in US history, and older adults consume healthcare at dramatically higher rates than younger populations — particularly from the specialist physicians (cardiologists, oncologists, geriatricians, neurologists) who are themselves the shortest-supplied. The aging of the physician workforce is compressing supply: physicians aged 65 or older represent 20% of the active clinical workforce, and those aged 55–64 are an additional 22% — meaning that more than 40% of practicing physicians will reach traditional retirement age within the next decade. Nearly 40% of practicing physicians in the US are expected to be 65 or older within the next decade, making a wave of retirements mathematically inevitable. And burnout is accelerating departure from the profession ahead of schedule: approximately 50% of physicians currently report experiencing burnout — down from the pandemic-era peak of 63% but still alarmingly high — and surveys consistently find that more than one-third of burned-out primary care physicians plan to stop seeing patients within one to three years. Taken together, these three pressures are acting simultaneously on the same pipeline of physicians, and the pipeline’s ability to replenish itself faces its own structural bottleneck: the federally capped number of Medicare-supported residency positions, which has remained largely unchanged since 1997 and limits the number of new doctors who can complete training and enter independent practice each year regardless of how many medical students graduate.
Interesting Key Facts About the US Doctor & Surgeon Shortage 2026
| Key Fact | Detail |
|---|---|
| Total projected physician shortage (AAMC, 2036) | Between 13,500 and 86,000 physicians short of national demand by 2036 |
| Total projected physician shortage (HRSA, 2027) | 124,180 physicians short of demand by 2027; 167,030 by 2032; 187,130 by 2037 |
| Primary care shortage (AAMC, 2036) | Between 20,200 and 40,400 primary care physicians short by 2036 |
| Primary care shortage (HRSA, 2038) | 70,610 primary care physicians short of demand in 2038 |
| Surgical specialist shortage (AAMC, 2036) | Between 10,000 and 19,900 surgeons — up to 74% of the AAMC total shortfall |
| Total designated primary care HPSAs (March 31, 2026) | 8,467 primary care Health Professional Shortage Areas — up from 7,718 in 2024 |
| Population in primary care HPSAs (2025) | Approximately 92.3 million people live in designated primary care shortage areas — up from 76.3 million in 2024 |
| Primary care needs being met in HPSAs (2025) | Only 48.1% of primary care needs in HPSA-designated areas are currently being met — up minimally from 47.2% in 2024 |
| Additional primary care practitioners needed (2025) | An estimated 15,604 additional practitioners needed to remove all current primary care HPSA designations — up from 13,273 in 2024 |
| Population in mental health HPSAs | Approximately 122 million Americans live in a mental health HPSA |
| Population in dental health HPSAs | Approximately 58 million Americans live in a dental health HPSA |
| Physician aging — retirement risk | Physicians aged 65+ are 20% of the clinical workforce; those 55–64 are 22% — meaning over 40% will reach retirement age within a decade |
| Under-40 physicians (2022) | Only 17% of active physicians are under age 40 |
| Average physician age (2022) | 51.2 years old — average across all active physicians |
| Physician burnout rate (2025) | Approximately 50% of physicians report burnout — down from 63% pandemic peak but still double pre-pandemic norms |
| Burned-out PCPs planning to quit patient care | More than one-third of burned-out primary care physicians plan to stop seeing patients within 1–3 years |
| Average patient wait time (2024) | Average wait time for a physician appointment: 38 days — up from 24 days in 2017 and 26 days in 2022 |
| Underserved population gap | If underserved populations received care at the same rate as well-served populations, the US would need approximately 202,800 more physicians as of 2021 — more than 5× the current shortfall |
| Primary care filling time | Primary care physician positions take an average of 125 days to fill; specialist positions average 135 days |
| Rural physician density | Rural areas have approximately 30 physicians per 100,000 people — versus 263 per 100,000 in urban areas |
Source: AAMC — The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections From 2021 to 2036 (2024); HRSA NCHWA Physician Projections Factsheet (December 2025); HRSA Bureau of Health Workforce — Health Workforce Projections page
The jump from 7,718 to 8,467 primary care HPSAs between 2024 and 2025 — a 9.7% increase in shortage-designated areas in a single year — is one of the clearest signals that the physician shortage is not merely a future problem being modelled in spreadsheets but a current, accelerating, measurable crisis. The population covered by those designations jumped from 76.3 million to 92.3 million in the same period — a 21% increase in one year — meaning that every week brings new communities crossing the federal threshold of insufficiency. The fact that only 48.1% of primary care needs are being met in those designated areas means that, in the areas of America that the federal government has formally identified as underserved, the existing physician supply addresses roughly half of what the population requires. In practical terms, this translates into patients who cannot get appointments, who rely on emergency departments as their primary care point of contact, and who have conditions diagnosed late or not at all because consistent access to a doctor is simply unavailable.
The 202,800 additional physicians that the AAMC estimates would be needed if underserved communities received care at the same rate as well-served ones is the most important number in this dataset, and also the most consistently overlooked. All the headline shortage estimates — 86,000 by 2036, 124,000 by 2027 — are based on current utilisation patterns. They assume that Americans who currently don’t see doctors because they can’t access or afford them will continue not to see doctors. The 202,800 figure is what the shortage would be if the healthcare system actually functioned equitably — if every American with diabetes got the same monitoring and management as an insured middle-class urban resident, if every rural resident had the same access to preventive cardiology as someone in a Boston suburb. Five times the headline shortage. This is not a number the US healthcare system is currently planning for, but it is the number that defines the human cost of leaving the current distribution of doctors where it is.
Physician Shortage by Specialty — Key Data 2026
| Specialty | Shortage Projection / Current Status | Source / Date |
|---|---|---|
| Primary Care (All) | AAMC: 20,200–40,400 shortage by 2036; HRSA: 70,610 shortage by 2038; nonmetro areas projected to have 39% shortage of primary care physicians by 2038 | AAMC 2024 report; HRSA NCHWA December 2025; HRSA Bureau of Health Workforce |
| Family Medicine | Only 89% of family medicine residency slots filled in 2023 vs. 93% overall fill rate; largest single primary care gap | CBS / National Resident Matching Program 2023; MSMS 5 Key Factors 2024 |
| General Surgery | HRSA projected 2,970 general surgeon deficit by 2025; AAMC data show 21 states have fewer than 7.5 general surgeons per 100,000 — the benchmark; still graduating only ~1,000 general surgeons/year — the same rate as 30 years ago | HRSA report; ACS Bulletin July/August 2025; AAMC data |
| Psychiatry / Mental Health | 122 million Americans in mental health HPSAs; psychiatry is a federally designated shortage specialty; HRSA projects 7,660 OB-GYN shortage by 2038, with mental health similarly severe | HRSA State of US Health Care Workforce 2024; HRSA NCHWA December 2025 |
| OB-GYN / Obstetrics | HRSA projects a 7,660 FTE OB-GYN shortage by 2038; 46% shortage of OB-GYNs in nonmetro areas projected by 2038 | HRSA NCHWA December 2025; HRSA Bureau of Health Workforce page |
| Vascular Surgery | Predicted 31% demand growth by 2025 — highest for any specialty; only ~3,800 board-certified vascular surgeons in the US; bringing in 150 new vascular surgeons/year but need ~200 | NEJM CareerCenter; AAMC / Society for Vascular Surgery data |
| Urology | HRSA projected a 41% shortfall in urology by 2025; 27% of current urologists plan to retire within 5 years — and these retiring urologists are twice as likely to practice in rural areas | HRSA / NEJM CareerCenter; ScienceDirect surgical workforce study 2021 |
| Ophthalmology | HRSA projected a 6,180 ophthalmologist deficit by 2025 — one of the largest projected by specialty | HRSA report cited in NEJM CareerCenter |
| Orthopaedic Surgery | HRSA projected 5,050 orthopaedic surgeon deficit by 2025; orthopaedic surgery workforce grew only 1.2% in a recent 4-year span — the lowest of any surgical specialty | HRSA; ACS Bulletin April 2024 — Physician Workforce Data |
| Neurosurgery | Only approximately 3,800 board-certified neurosurgeons in the US; classified as shortage specialty particularly in rural areas | NEJM CareerCenter; AAMC |
| Cardiology | More than 40% of general cardiologists were over 55 even in 2013; demand projected to grow 20% by 2025 driven by cardiovascular disease prevalence and ageing population | NEJM CareerCenter citing AAMC/Health Affairs data |
| Cardiothoracic Surgery | Projected shortages increasing workload by 10–50% additional wRVU by 2030; specialty has contracted somewhat in recent years | ScienceDirect surgical workforce study 2021 |
| Otolaryngology (ENT) | Among nine surgical specialties projected to have shortages by 2030 with increasing clinical workload demands | ScienceDirect surgical workforce study 2021 |
| Plastic Surgery | Among nine surgical specialties projected to have shortages by 2030 and 2050 | ScienceDirect surgical workforce study 2021 |
| All Surgical Specialties Combined | AAMC 2024 report projects 10,000–19,900 surgeon shortfall by 2036 — as much as 74% of total projected physician shortfall; 9 of 10 surgical specialties projected to face shortage by 2030 | AAMC 2024; ACS Bulletin July/August 2025; DHHS 2016 workforce analysis |
| Rural surgical specialties (all) | Rural areas have approximately 30 physicians per 100,000 vs. 263 in urban areas; projected 23% decline in rural physicians by 2030 due to retirements | NRHA June 2025; ACS rural surgical analysis |
Source: AAMC — The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections From 2021 to 2036 (2024); HRSA NCHWA Physician Projections Factsheet (December 2025); HRSA Bureau of Health Workforce Projections page; HRSA State of the US Health Care Workforce 2024; NEJM CareerCenter — “Physician Shortage Spikes Demand in Several Specialties”; AAMC — “Desperately Seeking Surgeons”
The specialty-level data tells a story of uneven collapse rather than uniform shortage, and understanding which specialties are most acutely short-supplied is essential for anyone trying to understand why patients experience the healthcare system the way they do in 2026. The fact that the AAMC projects surgeons will account for up to 74% of the total physician shortfall despite making up a far smaller share of the physician workforce reflects something structural about surgical training: it is expensive, long, bottlenecked by residency caps, and increasingly unattractive to medical graduates who look at the combination of demanding hours, high liability exposure, and relatively compressed pay compared to some procedure-based non-surgical specialties. The general surgery data is particularly alarming — only about 1,000 general surgeons have been trained per year for the past three decades, while the US population has grown by nearly 50% in that same period. The arithmetic is straightforward and the consequences are already visible: 21 states fall below the benchmark of 7.5 general surgeons per 100,000 population, meaning that in those states, patients requiring general surgical care — from appendectomies to cancer operations — face longer waits, longer travel distances, and in rural areas, sometimes no local access at all.
The psychiatric and mental health shortage operates on a different scale and geography from surgical shortages but is arguably the most consequential given the prevalence of mental illness in the US population. With 122 million Americans living in a federally designated mental health HPSA — over one-third of the country — and psychiatry consistently among the least-filled specialties in residency matching, the mismatch between need and supply is not improving. The HRSA’s designation threshold for mental health HPSAs is a psychiatrist-to-population ratio of 30,000 to 1 — a ratio set deliberately low because psychiatrists are so scarce that setting it at 3,500 to 1 (as for primary care) would designate virtually the entire country as a shortage area. Even at this lenient threshold, one-third of Americans still don’t have enough psychiatrists available. For the OB-GYN shortage — which the HRSA projects will produce a 46% deficit in nonmetro areas by 2038 — the consequences are already manifesting in maternal mortality rates and in the closure of maternity wards at rural hospitals unable to staff obstetric services. Pregnancy and childbirth are not elective; a shortage of OB-GYNs is a shortage that affects every family in its geographic footprint.
Doctor & Surgeon Shortage by State — Key Data 2026
| State / Category | Key Shortage Metric | Source / Date |
|---|---|---|
| California | 661 primary care HPSA designations — more than any other state in the country (vs. Arizona’s 284, the second-highest); 6.9 million Californians live in primary care shortage areas; only 53.6% of primary care need in those areas is met; 1,045 additional primary care physicians needed to remove all designations | Pinpoint Hire / HRSA data as of December 31, 2025 (released March 14, 2026) |
| California (mental health) | 627 mental health HPSA designations covering 11.5 million Californians | Pinpoint Hire / HRSA Q1 FY2026 data |
| Arizona | Second-highest state for primary care HPSA designations with 284 | Pinpoint Hire / HRSA data (December 31, 2025) |
| Rural states (highest shortage impact) | HRSA projects nonmetro areas will experience a projected 39% shortage of primary care physicians by 2038 — versus 58% of need met in metro areas | HRSA Bureau of Health Workforce; HRSA Physician Projections Factsheet December 2025 |
| Rural states — OB-GYN | Nonmetro areas projected to have a 46% shortage of OB-GYNs by 2038 — nearly half the needed obstetric care unavailable in rural settings | HRSA NCHWA December 2025 projections |
| Texas (surgeon example) | Washington DC (fully urban, pop. 689,545) has 24.1 general surgeons per 100,000; rural states like New Hampshire have dramatically lower ratios — illustrating maldistribution | ACS Bulletin — Physician Workforce Data Suggest Epochal Change, April 2024 |
| 21 states below general surgery benchmark | AAMC data show 21 states have fewer than 7.5 general surgeons per 100,000 population — the benchmark level of adequacy | ACS Bulletin July/August 2025 citing AAMC data |
| States meeting primary care needs least (overall ranking category) | The states ranking lowest on “percent of primary care needs met” in HPSAs tend to be rural-dominant states with large geographic coverage; Texas, Mississippi, Arizona, and Nevada consistently appear in lower-performing tiers | Becker’s Hospital Review January 2026 citing HRSA 2025 data |
| Primary care HPSA designation increase (2024 to 2025) | Number of designated primary care HPSAs rose from 7,718 in 2024 to 8,467 in 2025 — a 9.7% increase in shortage-designated areas in a single year | Becker’s Hospital Review / HRSA data |
| Population living in primary care HPSAs (growth) | Population covered by primary care HPSA designations increased from approximately 76.3 million (2024) to 92.3 million (2025) — a 21% increase in one year | Becker’s Hospital Review / HRSA data |
| Rural physician decline projection | Projected 23% decline in rural physicians by 2030 due to retirements; rural physicians are older than average and more than half of rural doctors are aged 50 or older | NRHA June 2025 citing published data |
| Rural vs. urban physician ratio | Rural areas have approximately 30 physicians per 100,000 people vs. 263 per 100,000 in urban areas — nearly a 9-to-1 disparity | NRHA citing published data; Rural Physician Burnout analysis June 2025 |
| Federal programs covering shortage areas | More than 34 federal programs depend on HPSA/MUA/MUP designations to determine eligibility or funding preference; approximately 20% of the US population resides in primary care HPSAs | HRSA shortage areas dashboard; HRSA data.hrsa.gov |
| National Health Service Corps (NHSC) | NHSC offers scholarships and loan repayments to qualified primary care clinicians willing to serve in HPSAs; 2026 class year NHSC assignments require HPSA scores of 21+ for primary care physician scholars | HRSA NHSC HPSA score class year 2026; NHSC.hrsa.gov |
Source: Pinpoint Hire — “California Physician Shortage Areas: What the 2026 HPSA Data Shows” (March 15, 2026, citing HRSA Q1 FY2026 data as of December 31, 2025); HRSA Designated Health Professional Shortage Areas Statistics as of March 31, 2026 (data.hrsa.gov)
The state-level picture of the US physician shortage confirms what national averages obscure: this is profoundly a geographic problem as much as a numerical one. California’s 661 primary care HPSA designations — more than any other state and more than double Arizona’s 284 — reflects a specific paradox: California is home to some of the best-resourced medical schools and academic health centres in the world, yet its size, urban concentration of physicians, and large rural and low-income populations mean that millions of Californians live in areas that cannot attract or retain adequate primary care. The 6.9 million Californians in primary care shortage areas is a population comparable to the entire state of Washington — and yet only 53.6% of their primary care needs are being met. The 11.5 million Californians in mental health HPSAs illustrates how the mental health shortage operates at an even more extreme geographic scale, covering communities that are not geographically remote by any normal measure but simply cannot attract sufficient psychiatrists to serve their populations.
The rural physician reality is the most stark expression of what the national shortage numbers mean on the ground. A 9-to-1 disparity in physician density between rural and urban areas (30 per 100,000 vs. 263 per 100,000) is not a difference in access — it is a difference between having a functioning healthcare system and not having one. The projected 23% decline in rural physicians by 2030 through retirements takes this already-critical situation and makes it existential for the communities affected. Rural physicians tend to be older than their urban counterparts — often because they were recruited to rural areas during an earlier era of physician activism and rural service incentives, and because younger physicians who train in urban residencies disproportionately choose to stay there. When a rural community’s only general surgeon or family physician retires, the path to replacement can take years, often requires special funding arrangements, and frequently fails — leaving communities with no local physician at all. The HRSA’s projection of a 39% shortage of primary care physicians in nonmetro areas by 2038 (versus the national average shortage) is the federal government’s own forecast of what America’s medical deserts will look like if current trends persist.
Root Causes of the US Physician Shortage 2026
| Cause of Shortage | Key Data / Detail | Source / Date |
|---|---|---|
| Aging US population driving demand | By 2034, Americans age 65+ will outnumber children under 18 for the first time; 17% of US population (58 million) was 65+ in 2022 — rising to ~23% (82 million) by 2050; older adults require more frequent and complex care | AAMC report; HRSA State of US Health Care Workforce 2024 |
| Aging physician workforce | Physicians aged 65+ are 20% of active clinical workforce; those aged 55–64 are 22% — more than 40% will reach retirement age within the next decade | AAMC press release March 2024; AAMC 2024 report |
| 30% of all physicians retire between ages 60–65 | A 2024 AMA article notes that 30% of physicians across all specialties retire between ages 60 and 65 | AMA 2024 cited in MSMS analysis |
| Residency cap bottleneck (GME cap) | Congress imposed a cap on Medicare-supported residency positions in 1997 that has remained largely unchanged; this limits growth of the physician pipeline regardless of medical school output | AAMC; ACS Bulletin July/August 2025; AAMC “When the Doctor Shortage is Personal” September 2025 |
| Medical school enrollment increase but pipeline stalled | Medical school enrollment grew by nearly 40% from 2002 to the early 2020s (from 69,718 to 95,475 students); but residency caps mean not all graduates can complete training | AAMC; AAMC “New AAMC Report” March 2024 |
| Congress 2020 and 2022 GME expansion (insufficient) | December 2020: Congress approved 1,200 new Medicare-supported GME positions — the first increase in 23 years; still far short of need | AAMC “When the Doctor Shortage Is Personal” September 2025 |
| Proposed Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act | Bipartisan legislation — S. 2439/H.R. 4731 (Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2025) — would gradually add 14,000 more residency slots over 7 years | AAMC September 2025; AAMC advocacy page |
| Physician burnout — a direct pipeline drain | 50% of physicians report burnout (2025); over one-third of burned-out primary care physicians plan to stop seeing patients in 1–3 years; physicians are 82.3% more likely to experience burnout than other occupations | Commonwealth Fund December 2024; NRHA June 2025; Union Healthcare Insight 2025 |
| Administrative burden | Burnout fuelled by high patient volume, documentation requirements, and spiking prior authorization and denial rates; 7 in 10 physicians say work-related stress is hindering quality of life (MDVIP/Ipsos January 2025) | Union Healthcare Insight; Definitive HC 2025 |
| Primary care pay gap vs. specialties | Median family medicine salary: ~$255,000 vs. plastic surgery (highest specialty): ~$619,000 (Medscape 2023); medical school debt median: $250,995, with total repayment approaching $400,000+ at standard terms — drives students toward higher-paying specialties | Medscape 2023 Physician Compensation Report; MSMS analysis citing Forbes 2023 |
| Rural practice disincentives | Rural physicians retire at higher rates; rural areas offer lower pay, fewer professional resources, harder recruitment; more than half of rural doctors aged 50 or older | NRHA June 2025; MSMS analysis |
| Physician turnover costs | Turnover of primary care physicians leads to $979 million in annual excess health care costs across the US population — $260 million (27%) attributable specifically to burnout | PubMed — Journal of General Internal Medicine May 2025 citing 2021 published study |
| COVID-19 lasting impact | COVID-19 becoming endemic has increased future demand for physicians by approximately 1% (AAMC estimate); pandemic-era burnout drove early retirements and career changes | AAMC 2024 report; HRSA State of US Health Care Workforce 2024 |
| 1 in 5 providers in US medical groups were new (2022–2024) | From 2022–2024, about one in five providers in US medical groups were new to their practice — reflecting sustained churn in the physician workforce | Union Healthcare Insight 2025 state of physician workforce |
| McKinsey survey — physician departure intent | McKinsey (July 2023, 631 physicians): more than a third are likely to leave their jobs in the next 5 years; 59% of those aged 54–64 said early retirement is their most likely next step | BST Quarterly citing McKinsey data |
Source: AAMC — The Complexities of Physician Supply and Demand: Projections From 2021 to 2036 (2024); AAMC — “New AAMC Report Shows Continuing Projected Physician Shortage” (press release, March 2024);
The residency cap is the most structurally important and least publicly discussed cause of the physician shortage, because it is both a policy choice and a policy failure that has compounded for nearly three decades. The 1997 Balanced Budget Act’s cap on Medicare-supported residency positions was imposed as a cost-control measure during a period when some analysts (incorrectly, as it turned out) projected a physician surplus. The cap set in 1997 — covering roughly 100,000 positions nationally at the time — has remained largely unchanged since, even as medical school enrollment grew by 40% and the US population grew by tens of millions. The result is an extraordinary situation: more medical school graduates than ever, but insufficient residency slots to complete their training. Without completing residency, a physician cannot practice independently in the United States. The 2020 addition of 1,200 slots was the first increase in 23 years; the 2022 addition of an additional increment was similarly modest. The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2025 (S. 2439/H.R. 4731) would add 14,000 slots over seven years — a meaningful step, but one that would take a full decade to fully manifest in new practicing physicians, given the length of medical training.
The pay gap between primary care and specialty medicine is a market signal that is reliably steering medical graduates toward the wrong distribution. A medical student graduating with $250,995 in median debt — facing $400,000+ in total repayment at standard terms — who chooses family medicine over plastic surgery is accepting a salary roughly $364,000 lower per year for doing so. Over a 30-year career, even after accounting for the longer training for some surgical subspecialties, this is a decision that costs millions of dollars in lifetime earnings. The result is predictable and has been extensively documented: graduates who are drawn to primary care by vocation are pushed toward specialties by financial reality, while graduates who might have found satisfaction in primary care’s relationship-based practice model are steered toward specialty medicine by loan payments. This does not create a primary care physician workforce that is merely adequate in numbers — it creates one that is emotionally exhausted, financially stressed, and disproportionately staffed by those for whom the pay difference genuinely doesn’t matter, which tends to mean those with independent wealth or extraordinary idealism, neither of which scales as a workforce pipeline.
Impact of the Shortage on Patients and Healthcare Access 2026
| Patient Impact Metric | Figure / Detail | Source / Date |
|---|---|---|
| Average patient wait time (2024) | Average wait time for a physician appointment: 38 days — up from 24 days in 2017 and 26 days in 2022 | Union Healthcare Insight citing 2024 study |
| Primary care position fill time | Primary care physician positions take an average of 125 days to fill | BST Quarterly citing StaffMed Health Partners / AAPPR 2024 |
| Specialist position fill time | Specialist positions take an average of 135 days to fill — longer than primary care | BST Quarterly citing StaffMed Health Partners / AAPPR 2024 |
| Population living in primary care HPSAs (2025) | Approximately 92.3 million Americans — about 27% of the US population — live in a primary care shortage area | Becker’s Hospital Review / HRSA 2025 |
| Population in mental health HPSAs | 122 million Americans in a designated mental health shortage area | HRSA State of US Health Care Workforce 2024 |
| Rural care gap — general surgery | Rural areas have only ~30 physicians per 100,000 vs. ~263 in urban areas; many rural communities have no general surgeon at all | NRHA; ACS data |
| Nonmetro primary care shortage (projected 2038) | 39% shortage of primary care physicians in nonmetro areas by 2038 — already severe today | HRSA NCHWA December 2025 |
| Nonmetro OB-GYN shortage (projected 2038) | 46% shortage of OB-GYNs in nonmetro areas — over half the needed obstetric care unavailable in rural settings | HRSA NCHWA December 2025 |
| Underserved population care gap | If underserved populations received care at the same rate as well-served ones, the US would need ~202,800 more physicians — 5× the headline shortage estimates | AAMC 2024 report |
| Economic cost of physician turnover | Physician turnover leads to $979 million in annual excess healthcare costs nationally; $260 million (27%) attributable to burnout | PubMed / Journal of General Internal Medicine May 2025 |
| Surgical workload increase (projected 2030) | Surgeon shortages across nine specialties will increase clinical workload by 10–50% additional wRVU by 2030 for the remaining surgeons | ScienceDirect — American Journal of Surgery 2021 |
| Cost per replaced RN (proxy for physician vacancy cost) | Hospitals now spend over $60,000 to replace a single RN — physician replacement costs are substantially higher | Healthcare Staffing Shortages 2025 (TheodoreDrew.com) citing Becker’s Hospital Review 2025 |
| One in five providers new to practice (2022–2024) | About one in five providers in US medical groups were new to their practice in the 2022–2024 period — indicating high turnover and instability | Union Healthcare Insight 2025 |
| Burnout → patient care quality | Burned-out physicians are more likely to make medical errors, have lower patient satisfaction scores, and leave practice — directly reducing availability and quality of care | Commonwealth Fund December 2024; US Surgeon General warning |
| Surgical specialties workload (2050 projection) | By 2050, surgeon shortages in eight specialties estimated to increase clinical demands by 7–61% additional wRVU — meaning surviving surgeons would need to work dramatically more | ScienceDirect — American Journal of Surgery 2021 |
| 34+ federal programmes dependent on HPSA designations | More than 34 federal programmes use HPSA/MUA/MUP designations to determine eligibility or funding priority — linking shortage designations to resource allocation across healthcare, education, and housing | HRSA shortage areas dashboard (data.hrsa.gov) |
| Primary care and mortality | Research has found that higher primary care physician supply is associated with reduced population mortality; shortages are linked to worse health outcomes across communities | PubMed — JAMA Internal Medicine 2019 (Basu et al.) |
Source: Union Healthcare Insight 2025; BST Quarterly citing AAPPR 2024 Benchmarking; HRSA Designated HPSA Statistics as of March 31, 2026; HRSA State of the US Health Care Workforce 2024; Becker’s Hospital Review January 2026; AAMC 2024 report
The 38-day average wait time for a physician appointment in 2024 — up from 24 days in 2017 and 26 days in 2022 — is the patient-facing manifestation of the physician shortage, and the trend line is troubling. Seven years of acceleration suggests that wait times are not stabilising but worsening, and the pace of increase has picked up. A 24-day wait in 2017 became a 26-day wait in 2022 — a 2-day increase over five years. A 26-day wait in 2022 became a 38-day wait in 2024 — a 12-day increase over two years. This is not a linear trend; it is an accelerating one. For a patient with a new symptom that may be benign or may be early cancer, a 38-day wait for a primary care appointment is not merely an inconvenience — it is a clinical risk. For a patient in a rural area whose nearest specialist is two hours away and whose wait time is longer than the national average, it is a potential death sentence that will never appear in any statistics because it will be recorded as the underlying disease rather than the access failure that allowed it to progress.
The economic cost of physician turnover — $979 million in annual excess healthcare costs from primary care physician churn alone, with $260 million attributable directly to burnout — is the financial argument for treating physician wellbeing as a healthcare system investment rather than an individual concern. Burned-out physicians don’t just leave; before they leave they reduce their hours, make more errors, generate lower patient satisfaction scores, and function at reduced cognitive capacity. The US healthcare system is paying a billion-dollar annual price for ignoring a problem that organisational research suggests is substantially addressable through manageable interventions: reducing documentation burden, improving prior authorisation processes, providing adequate support staff, and creating workplace cultures that don’t treat physician distress as a personal failing. The fact that burnout rates declined from the pandemic peak of 63% to approximately 50% by 2025 — without major structural changes in physician working conditions — suggests that some of this reduction reflects exhaustion rather than resolution: physicians have simply adapted to an unsustainable normal that will continue to erode the workforce unless the underlying drivers are addressed.
Disclaimer: The data research report we present here is based on information found from various sources. We are not liable for any financial loss, errors, or damages of any kind that may result from the use of the information herein. We acknowledge that though we try to report accurately, we cannot verify the absolute facts of everything that has been represented.
