Recruit, Retain, Repeat: Iowa Faces Doctor Shortage

Health care constantly evolves and shifts, in policy and practice. Iowa providers need to innovate to provide the best care. But you can’t do that if you don’t have enough doctors. Health care experts and policy makers have found that nationwide, and strikingly in Iowa, there are not enough primary care and specialty physicians to meet the demand for patient care. Of all 50 states, the Hawkeye State ranked 46th in 2016 for the total number of physicians active in patient care per 100,000 people, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, the not-for-profit that represents all the medical schools in the United States. And that disparity is expected only to get worse.