Help Wanted: doctors and nurses.

• Author: Tobler, Laura
• Position: HEALTH REFORM: SPECIAL REPORT - Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act and shortage of primary care providers

The Affordable Care Act will allow about 32 million more Americans to have health coverage by 2019, according to the Obama administration. Who will treat them?

Even before federal health reform, experts were predicting that, by 2025, the country would face a shortage of as many as 45,000 primary care providers-physicians, nurses, physician's assistants, nurse practitioners and others. With that in mind, the law included provisions to strengthen the current primary care workforce and increase the number of providers in the future. The law:

* Increases payments for primary care services under Medicaid and Medicare.

* Provides grants to expand nursing education and training.

* Provided the money for clinics run by nurse practitioners.

* Provides financial incentives to physician's assistants to work in primary care.

* Creates new payment models that provide financial incentives to primary care providers.

* Adds medical residency slots to train 500 more primary care physicians by 2015.

* Increases funding to community health centers by $11 billion (although $604 million was cut in 2011) over five years to expand primary care services.

Building on the more than $200 million for health care workforce projects included in the 2009 stimulus act, the Affordable Care Act focuses on getting more doctors into needy communities, mainly small rural towns and big city...