Feeling the pain: medical provider shortage looms large.

• Author: Haraldsen, Tom
• Position: Focus

In the course of one week nearly three and a half years ago, the future of medical providers in Utah may have been changed for decades. That was in September 2008, when the federal government cut $10 million in Medicaid funding to the University of Utah's hospital. Days later, the state legislatures mandated budget cuts to the university resulted in a further loss of $2.5 million in funding for the Us School of Medicine.

[ILLUSTRATION OMITTED]

The net result--a 40 percent loss of its education budget almost overnight, and with it, an eventual loss of "slots" available for students wanting to enter the program. Even a 15 percent raise in tuition for med school students couldn't offset the inevitable loss of that funding, and available openings for new students dropped about 20 percent.

The cuts have prompted university officials to plead with this years state legislature for more money--not just to restore it's lost slots, but to add 20 more over the next school academic years. Those 40 student openings are estimated to cost $12.2 million, with the university proposing a cost-sharing of $9.6 from the state. Over four years, that would mean an additional 160 students being trained as physicians.

Short of changes, a potential crisis awaits Utah--a shortage of medical providers going forward. A study by the Association of American Medical Colleges estimated that the United States could face a shortage of 85,000 to 96,000 physicians by 2020 unless med schools can increase the numbers of their graduates. The AAMC said five years ago that enrollment would need to increase by 15 percent in med schools over a 10-year period running through 2015. Instead, many schools around the country, like the U, are now enrollment-capped or actually admitting fewer numbers of first-year students.

A Boom in Demand

Locally, the long-term effects of those lost openings could be widespread and painful, particularly for the states rural communities.

"We are already facing a shortage," says Michele McOmber, CEO of the Utah Medical Association. "The [U] medical school has had the same amount of students for the past 100 years, and the year of the cuts, they had planned on increasing that number by about 30 percent, rather than see a decrease. We have a continued growth in the population in this state--lots of children, and that increases the need for providers. Yet, we have decreased numbers of physicians."

In 2011, Utah ranked 43rd in the United States in terms of the...