Wednesday, February 26, 2003

Call-up of physician reservists to active military duty would escalate rural medical staffing crisis

The potential call-up of physician reservists in the event of a war with Iraq will severely impact staffing at rural hospitals and clinics - already beset by a shortage of skilled professionals - creating a crisis that healthcare providers need to immediately begin planning to address.

TimeLineRecruiting, a retainer-based medical and allied-health professional recruiting firm, said recently that it will offer free networking services to assist healthcare executives deal with the loss of critical skills.

"Rural healthcare providers today are facing a critical shortage of physicians with thousands of general and specialty practice positions unfilled across rural America," said Van Allen, CEO, TimeLine Recruiting. "A call-up of even a percentage of the physicians currently in the military reserves would prove devastating to the ability of rural healthcare facilities to sustain and provide services - unless they begin planning and thinking creatively now."

More than 4,400 physicians are currently enrolled in the military reserves, according to the Department of Defense. During the Gulf War of 1990-91, nearly 3,400 physicians and 47,000 medical personnel were called out of public and private practice by the U.S. armed forces into active duty.

"In some rural areas, the loss of even one physician from a healthcare network could cut physician staff by half, while the loss of a single individual with a specialty skill - such as orthopedics - could result in the loss of that medical service in an entire community creating a substantial surgical revenue deficit," Allen said.

Rural healthcare providers are already inventorying their staffing to identify the potential loss of skills and operational revenue they'd face in the event of a call-up and constructing contingency plans to replace the loss, Allen said. Those plans would likely draw from a

trio of options:

(1) Securing locum tenens or temporary replacements - a very expensive option and sure to be in even more demand nationwide.

(2) Recruiting and relocating permanent replacements - already a difficult task as evidenced by the existing severe shortage of physicians in rural areas.

(3) Enticing remaining private practice physicians to dedicate additional hours to their schedules and commute to impacted facilities in neighboring communities to set-up and staff local clinics there.

"The challenge for hospital executives and the remaining providers will be daunting," Allen said.

To assist in the latter scenario - likely to be the situation in most rural communities - Allen said TimeLine Recruiting will assist hospital executives to replace any physician called up to active military service by providing a free networking service to contact neighboring satellite healthcare facilities and recruit nearby medical professionals to hold local clinics in the affected facilities.

"The infrastructure for such a networking service is already in place as we're speaking to thousands of physicians around the country in our normal course of our recruiting work," Allen said. "While this is just one extra step for us, we're hoping that we can provide an added resource for executives who will be working hard to keep their facilities operating and providing greatly needed medical care to their communities."

Allen said he's spoken to a number of executives about the idea and is hopeful about the concept. "We're all going to need to pull together to get the job done," he said.

Healthcare providers interested in the service can reach Allen at TimeLine Recruiting by phone at 1-877-884-6354; by e-mail at vallen@timelinerecruiting.com; and on the Internet at www.timelinerecruiting.com.

According to Rural Information Center Health Service (RICHS), the rural medical community is understaffed by as much as 23.7 percent in some specialties, such as family practitioners. Both RICHS and the American Medical Association report that only 10 percent of the nation's doctors practice in rural regions - where 20 percent of the nation's population lives. U.S. Census data also supports the dearth of physicians in rural America, with rural states such as Idaho, Mississippi, Alaska, Oklahoma, Wyoming, Iowa, Nevada, South Dakota and Arkansas ranking among the top ten states with the lowest doctor/population ratio.