Physicians Per Capita Continues Up In 2016 FSMB Survey

Good news on a subject I've harped on before: physicians per capita as a fundamental cause of the cost of medicine. Absent adequate supply, it almost doesn't matter what kind of payment system we have: medicine can't get cheaper without a bigger workforce. Accordingly, the Federation of State Medical Boards has published their 2016 survey results (PDF). The topline figure of 953,695 alleopathic and osteopathic physicians represents a 12% increase since 2010, and a 4.09% increase from 2014. This is a 2.01% annual growth rate, which is slightly off the pace of 2.14% rate I calculated in January, 2017 based on the 2014 survey (no longer available). Given the overall US population rate appears to be growing at about 0.7% annually, this is more than keeping pace with overall population growth, a good thing.

Physician immigration continues to be important, with Indian physicians, and physicians studying in the Caribbean countries, being the two most important sources:

India by itself provides about 23% of the immigrant physician population, and 5.1% of all US physicians. A majority of doctors studying in Caribbean countries are US citizens, and this has been true for years:

The largest single age group of physicians is those in their 60s, something that will have consequences as this group nears retirement — and as modern medicine becomes more bureaucratic:

Women physicians under 40 are now nearly double the number of men in the same age cohort, reducing available physician hours:

In all, mostly good news, but there's still an obvious iceberg ahead with pending retirements, Trumpian immigration restrictions, the crisis of part-time physicians, and Medicare internship throttling.