New Orleans now a physician shortage area

The designation means higher Medicare reimbursements for some.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. June 5, 2006.

The federal government officially has recognized what many already knew about New Orleans: The city is short on physicians, as well as mental health workers and dentists.

The Health Resources and Services Administration Bureau's Health Professions National Center for Health Workforce Analysis recently designated Orleans Parish a health professional shortage area, a label that will give New Orleans physicians a 10% increase in Medicare reimbursements for certain services.

The designation also opens up the city to newly trained physicians looking for loan repayment options or visa waivers through the National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment and Scholars Programs, J-1 visa waiver programs and the State Loan Repayment Program. Within days of the late April announcement, the state's J-1 visa waiver program received three new applications for New Orleans.

Pockets of New Orleans held the HPSA designation before Hurricane Katrina. The city also covers Jefferson and St. Bernard parishes, with St. Bernard already declared a HPSA since the storm. To be named a shortage area, Orleans Parish had to have no more than one primary care doctor for 3,000 residents, one psychiatrist for 21,000 people and one dentist for 4,000 city dwellers.

Roberto E. Quintal, MD, president of the Orleans Parish Medical Society, sees the HPSA designation as one more step toward rebuilding the city.

"I think it will make a difference," Dr. Quintal said. "How big a difference? Nobody can predict. For the physicians who are currently here and who have gone through so much trouble to stay, the increase in reimbursement will help them out. Since many of the physicians who left were younger physicians, we hope the J-1 waiver and loan repayment programs will be enough inducement to bring some who are on the fence to make the decision to come to New Orleans."