April 2001 | Medical Board Wants Data on Doctors in New Jersey

MAIA DAVIS, Staff Writer 
19 April 2001 
The Record 
All Editions: Two Star B; Two Star P; One Star B 
A01 
English 
(Copyright 2001 North Jersey Media Group Inc.) 

Judging by the time patients spend in waiting rooms, it's hard to believe there might be a glut of doctors. 
 

Now, leaders of the state's medical community are going to find out. 
 

The New Jersey Board of Medical Examiners is scheduled to consider a draft survey Friday that would be sent to all 30,000 doctors licensed by the board. It would be New Jersey's first census of physicians. 
 

The idea came from the Commission on the Physician Workforce, which the state medical society formed in 1997 amid heightened concerns over pending underemployment among U.S. doctors. 
 

The ratio of doctors to population more than doubled between 1960 and the 1990s to one physician for every 392 Americans. In New Jersey, that ratio was even higher in recent years. 
 

But are there really too many doctors in New Jersey? Or could it be that suburban towns have more than enough physicians whereas poor urban areas and rural communities have too few? Also, maybe health experts had overstated the oversupply of specialists compared to primary care doctors. 
 

The commission tried to address these questions in its first report in 1999, but its chairman, Dr. Robert L. Pickens, said he was shocked at how little information has been compiled on the state's physicians. 
 

"The paucity of data was really quite appalling," Pickens said. "We really needed to get out there and get some fundamental information." Though the state medical board keeps a list of doctors it licenses, some of these physicians may practice only in New York, work part time, or have retired. 
 

The draft survey has about 30 questions on everything from where doctors went to medical school to what percentage of their patients don't speak English to whether they're willing to begin using the Internet to order prescriptions. 
 

Pickens said the medical board may suggest some revisions to the questionnaire. Rather than send the survey out during the summer, he said, his group would likely wait until the fall. The Rutgers Center for State Health Policy is also working on the project. 
 

A prime purpose, Pickens said, is to find out where New Jersey's doctors are and what they're doing. 
 

Among the proposed questions: How much time do doctors spend on patient care vs. research, teaching, or administration? Do they plan to retire soon? What are their specialties? 

If the survey finds a shortage of physicians in New Jersey's poorer cities, Pickens said, the commission would consider recommending ways of luring more doctors to these areas. 
 

One option, he said, would be for the state or federal government to pay the student loans of medical school graduates who agree to work for a certain amount of time in underserved areas. Another possibility would be a private or publicly financed campaign advertising the health-care jobs available in the state's cities. 
 

But there's no guarantee such recommendations would be put in place. 
 

"Many rural and inner-city communities have insufficient access to physician services," the commission said in its 1999 report. "The lack of funding to remedy this problem can fairly be termed a national disgrace." Dr. Walter J. Kahn, president of the Medical 

Society of New Jersey, sees a simple way to increase the number of doctors practicing in poor urban areas: Raise reimbursement rates for Medicaid, the government insurance program for the poor. 
 

Kahn said New Jersey's reimbursements for treating Medicaid patients are among the country's lowest. "I think we're around the same rate as Mississippi," he said. 
 

Kahn, an ophthalmologist in Monmouth County, said he expects the survey to show that some areas have too many of certain types of specialists, and too few of others. 
 

For example, while the number of dermatologists in Monmouth County has quadrupled in the past 20 years, what the area really needs, he said, is a thoracic surgeon, who would do chest-cavity operations. 
 

Pickens said some recent articles in medical journals suggest fears about an oversupply of doctors have been overblown. 

Particularly, in certain specialties such as pulmonology experts expect there to be growing demand as the population ages. 
"There is virtually no unemployment among physicians today," he said. 
 

Staff Writer Maia Davis e-mail address is davis@northjersey.com 
Document rec0000020010713dx4j00c37