Primary Care Has Its Problems, but Also Opportunities to Improve

The field of primary care continues to face mounting challenges, but there is some room for optimism, according to several experts.

In 2019, there were about 229,000 primary care physicians in the U.S., “the largest primary care physician workforce we’ve ever seen and the largest primary care physician workforce per-capita we’ve ever seen,” said Andrew Bazemore, MD, senior vice president for research and policy at the American Board of Family Practice, at an event on the state of primary care sponsored by the American Academy of Family Physicians; Bazemore cited American Medical Association (AMA) data. However, he added, primary care physicians still make up only about 30% to 31% of the country’s total physicians.