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Dive Brief:
- The ongoing physician shortage is projected to continue through 2030, driven by an aging population, high rates of clinician burnout and a growing number of people with chronic diseases, according to a report by staffing firm AMN Healthcare.
- The shortages will be especially hard on rural communities, AMN predicted. In 2025, rural areas filled registered nurse positions at only one-third the rate of their urban counterparts.
- President Donald Trump’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act, which included massive cuts to Medicare and Medicaid, is expected to exacerbate the issue, leading to the closure of more rural hospitals and clinics, the report stated.
Dive Insight:
The workforce shortage won’t self-correct — more physicians are retiring, medical school costs are rising and demand for specialists in areas like mental health and chronic disease management is growing, according to AMN.
A shortage of up to 86,000 physicians is projected by 2036, mainly in primary and specialty care, along with a deficit of registered nurses topping 63,000 by 2030.
The report, which looked at five years of AMN’s healthcare hiring data cross-referenced with government labor data, found workforce challenges for rural healthcare organizations were particularly acute.
For example, there were more than 7,700 federally designated health professional shortage areas for primary care in rural areas last year. An estimated 13,254 additional primary care providers are needed to eliminate those shortages.
However, just 2% of new physicians said they wanted to work in sparsely populated areas of the country, according to the report.
The prolonged shortages could exacerbate rural care access challenges as cuts to federal healthcare programs take effect.
Although the Trump administration greenlit $50 billion to tackle rural health challenges last year, the OBBBA is projected to cut spending for rural health further.
These funding cuts will lead to reduced reimbursement rates while driving up uncompensated care at rural hospitals, AMN predicted.
While the shortages have had an outsized impact on rural hospitals, healthcare organizations nationwide are being forced to confront the issue and develop innovative solutions, according to AMN.
The staffing firm suggested that some of the key drivers of workforce shortages across the industry — such as high burnout rates — could be partially alleviated by artificial intelligence, which has already been tied to increases in time savings and lower rates of burnout for clinicians.
AI-powered tools can complete tasks like screening potential job candidates, scheduling appointments and generating medical record summaries.
“The data points to a healthcare labor market that will require more precise planning, greater workforce flexibility and stronger pipelines across physicians, nurses, advanced practice providers and allied health professionals,” Robin Johnson, group president of nursing solutions at AMN Healthcare, said in a statement.
