Senator Bernie Sanders (I-Vermont), chairman of the Senate Subcommittee on Primary Health and Aging, will hold a hearing Tuesday on programs that address the severe shortages in the nation’ s primary care workforce.
One in five Americans lives in an area with a shortage of primary care providers. Shortages will worsen when the new insurance coverage expansions under the Affordable Care Act take full effect beginning in 2014. By 2025, more than 50,000 new primary care doctors and thousands of other providers will be necessary to meet the need.
The hearing will highlight the National Health Service Corps, the Teaching Health Center program, innovative primary care-focused medical schools, and the education of and delivery of care by nurse practitioners.
Witness scheduled to testify include:
Panel I
Rebecca Spitzgo, HRSA Associate Administrator, Bureau of Clinician Recruitment and Service, and Director of the National Health Service Corps, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Rockville, MD
Panel II
George S. Rust, MD, MPH, Professor of Family Medicine at the Morehouse School of Medicine and Co-Director of the National Center for Primary Care, Atlanta, GA
Dan Hawkins, Senior Vice President, Public Policy and Research at the National Association of Community Health Centers, Washington, DC
Paul R. G. Cunningham, MD, FACS, Dean and Senior Associate Vice Chancellor for Medical Affairs at the Brody School of Medicine, East Carolina University, Greenville, NC
Deborah Wachtel, NP, MPH, MS, President of the Vermont Nurse Practitioner Association and Vermont State representative for the American Association of Nurse Practitioners, Essex, VT
Bruce Koeppen, MD, PhD, Founding Dean of the Frank H. Netter MD School of Medicine at Quinnipiac University, Hamden, CT
Who: Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.)
What: Senate Subcommittee Hearing: Successful Primary Care Programs: Creating the Workforce We Need
When: 10 a.m., Tuesday, April 23
Where: SD-430, Dirksen Senate Building, Washington, DC
WASHINGTON, April 22 ‘ Sanders office