Idaho’s insufficient number of physicians is being reviewed by a state working group, which is focusing on medical education scale and opportunity.
They have reason to explore the subject. As the Idaho Ed News summarized, “A new law calls for the state to add another 30 publicly funded medical school seats over the next three years, while some lawmakers have suggested severing or cutting back Idaho’s 50-year partnership with the University of Washington’s WWAMI program, which now takes 40 Idaho students per year. That’s where Idaho has put its medical education-related tax dollars. WWAMI — named for its member states of Washington, Wyoming, Alaska, Montana and Idaho — will receive $7.5 million this year. A smaller partnership with the University of Utah will receive $3.1 million.”
The legislature’s seeming indecision about whether to take a step forward or backward may be one part of the problem. And carefully considering what the state can do to train more doctors is no doubt important.
But as the state Board of Education’s executive director said at the group’s Monday meeting, “I think we’re going to have to be a little bit more creative.”
I would expand that to include areas well beyond medical education, which is only one piece of the issue.
Here’s the bottom line: Idaho is dead last among the states, statistically, in numbers of physicians per person, in a study released this summer by the health information group KFF. It is true that Nevada barely edges Idaho out for the fewest primary care physicians per 100,000 people (that would be 107.7 in Idaho to 104.4 in Nevada). But Idaho is way behind Nevada when it comes to specialist physicians per 100,000 (that’s 81.9 for the Gem State).
Compare those numbers to, say, Oregon: 162.5 for primary care and 153.7 for specialists. Most other states, near Idaho and far away, have significantly higher numbers. (Oregon ranks 18th from the top among the states.)
Idaho’s medical education system hasn’t traditionally been among the strongest, but it’s usually been enough to pull its weight in keeping Idaho closer to the middle of the pack in health care. These stats seem to be changing.
Here’s one way to look at it.
What are the next five states with low physician numbers? Looking at primary care (and the numbers are similar for specialists), those would be Utah, Texas, Arizona, Mississippi and South Carolina.
And the five top states for high numbers of working physicians? Those are (putting aside the District of Columbia, which far outpaces everyone else): Massachusetts, New York, Rhode Island, Connecticut and Maryland.
Do these suggest any patterns?
If you want something more specific, consider the exodus from Idaho of ob-gyn practitioners - a net drop of about 35% between August 2022 and December 2024. There’s no mystery about why so many have departed: The specifics of, and atmosphere around, Idaho’s anti-abortion legal regime.
Consider the attitudes in political and governmental circles towards vaccination. Indicators here include the Southwest District Health in Idaho halting COVID-19 vaccines in public clinics, along with the large-scale arrival in recent years of anti-vaxx residents. If measles (which has arisen in disparate parts of the state) does take off soon in Idaho, that would be no surprise, least of all to physicians.
Cuts in many ways and forms in medical and related social services by the Trump Administration have been slamming all the states, but while some states (like many of those with more physicians) are making efforts to backfill for cuts to Medicaid and other health services, the early response from Idaho’s leaders appears to focus on exacerbating the damage, in ways such as recently announced cuts to provider reimbursement rates.
Idaho’s ranking in health care has many reasons. And extended into the future, those reasons suggest the state hasn’t seen anything yet.
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