Sen. Jacky Rosen. (U.S. Senate stream screengrab)
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.