Issue link: https://viewer.e-digitaledition.com/i/1243746
Leveraging Debt Relief to Fight the Physician Shortage BY STEVE BARRETT MEDIAN MEDICAL SCHOOL GR ADUATE DEBT IN 2018 WA S $200,000, ACCORDING TO THE A SSOCIATION OF AMERICAN MEDICAL COLLEGES (A AMC). California is making a $340 million bet it can leverage medical school debt relief both to address a shortage of physicians and encour- age more of them to accept patients enrolled in Medi-Cal, the state's version of Medicaid. That investment will provide up to $300,000 in debt relief to physicians who will commit to allotting a third of their time during the next five years to Medi-Cal patients, The New York Times reports. The U.S. may have a 120,000-physician shortage by 2030, according to A AMC, and California may be short 4,700 primary care clinicians by 2025, a University of California, San Francisco report found. Many young physicia ns a re opting for higher-pay ing specialties, according to the Times, because of the skyrocketing costs of medical school. Physicians in California who accept Medi- Cal patients are further burdened by the state's extremely low reimbursement rate for care provided through the program. The California initiative, CalHealthCares, is f unded w ith revenue from a state tobacco tax. Physicians selected for the program must provide regular documentation to dem- onstrate they are fulfilling the requirements, the article notes. n 059990058_Finance1.indd 1 11/7/19 3:05 PM Striking a Healthy Social Media Balance BUT WHAT YOU can do as a physician is set boundaries to maintain a degree of separation between your personal and professional lives — while also leveraging platforms that benefit patients. That's the message from Kimberly Becher, MD, who practices at a rural Federally Qualified Health Center in Clay County, West Virginia. It's OK to establish a nonmedical social media presence, Dr. Becher blogs at aafp.org, the website for the American Academy of Family Physicians. "Sometimes I need to step away from medicine to keep balance in my life," she explains. For her, that has meant setting up a Facebook page to communicate only with friends. She accepts no friend requests from patients, nor does she read anything patients send through Facebook Messenger. However, Dr. Becher does not deem all social media contact with patients damaging to a healthy balance between work and home life. BY STEVE BARRETT SOCIAL MEDIA: CAN'T LIVE WITHOUT IT, CAN'T PITCH IT INTO AN ACTIVE VOLCANO. "I created my Twitter account to connect with other physicians interested in health policy," she writes. "And although many of my patients don't use social media, I have a few who do follow me and have mentioned reading articles I post on vaccines. I like having a social media outlet that reaches patients, but I also enjoy having another that does not." An AMA Code of Medical Ethics Opinion encour- ages physicians to "consider separating personal and professional content online." n 1 4