by Jeniffer Solis, Nevada Current

A critical shortage of primary care doctors is impacting the quality of healthcare and extending wait times for patients across Nevada as the state’s population continues to grow.

Nevada Democratic Sen. Jacky Rosen is now urging the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services to help tackle the state’s doctor shortage by awarding the state more federally funded medical residency slots. 

Those slots would be funded through the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, which Congress passed to create 1,000 additional Medicare-funded full-time equivalent medical resident slots for eligible hospitals over five years. Another 200 medical residency slots were also created by the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023.

Nevada ranks 45th in the U.S. for active physicians per 100,000 people, according to the American Medical Association. With 7,388 licensed physicians in Nevada, the state would need an additional 1,500 primary care doctors to reach the national average.

The outlook for Nevada’s physician shortage is made dimmer by the state’s aging population of patients, as well as doctors. About a third of Nevada physicians are 60 years of age or older, according to state data.

“As Nevada’s population continues to grow, the gap between Nevadans’ medical needs and their ability to access care has only worsened over time,” said Rosen in a statement. “Today our state is facing a dire shortage of doctors, making it challenging for many Nevadans to access the quality, affordable health care that they need.”

In a letter sent to Secretary of Health and Human Services Xavier Becerra Wednesday, Rosen said 600 of the new medical resident slots funded by the Consolidated Appropriations Act have yet to be awarded. Additionally, only a few of the awarded slots have been given to Nevada despite a chronic shortage of active physicians in the growing state. 

“I urge you to award our state a greater proportion of residency slots so we can better meet Nevadans’ critical medical needs,” Rosen wrote to Becerra.

In the letter, Rosen asked Becerra for guidance on steps the state can take to improve the likelihood of Nevada hospitals receiving more slots in the upcoming distribution rounds.

While Nevada ranks 24th in the nation in the proportion of undergraduate medical students, the state ranks 41st in the number of residency and medical fellowship slots.

“The more doctors who train in our state, the more who will stay to practice medicine and take care of patients,” Rosen continued.

Critics of Nevada’s medical licensure process have also argued that the chronic shortage of medical providers in the state has been compounded by overzealous regulation, strict licensure requirements, and inefficient disciplinary action.

However, Nevada has made some progress attracting new providers, thanks in part to Nevada’s participation, along with 37 other states, in the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact (IMLC), an expedited path for physicians who want to work in more than one state.

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