PROVIDENCE – On paper, Rhode Island’s primary care landscape looks healthy. The Ocean State ranks in the top five states for health care overall and fourth for primary care supply.
These numbers, however, can be misleading, argues Michael Fine.
A former director of Rhode Island’s Department of Health and a doctor – plus a fiction and nonfiction author in his spare time – Fine presented data on the state of primary care in Rhode Island at the first meeting of a commission studying the possibility of a medical school at the University of Rhode Island.
A closer look at the numbers paints a different picture. About 348 primary care physicians in Rhode Island are over 60 years old, Fine estimated. If 10% to 20% retire, the state will lose between 55 to 110 providers every year. Yet only about 11 Rhode Islanders a year become primary care physicians.
Rhode Island is running on a deficit of providers that is leaving tens of thousands of residents without access to primary care.
“We got the best deck chair on the Titanic,” Fine told the commission members.