Medical field careers emphasizing primary care encouraged as the Health Reform Law takes effect
If you're thinking of going into one of the medical field careers, now is the time to do it! Thanks to the Health Reform Law of 2010, millions of people are about to gain the funding they need to get medical treatment. The medical field has always been a promising field for the young. Even before the law passed, America has been experiencing a shortage of medical professionals. Now, the new law has engendered a looming crisis - by 2020, we'll be short some 40,000 primary care professionals.
The already stressed medical profession will feel the burden of this new law immediately. In 2010, America's uninsured will receive immediate eligibility for medical insurance, being permitted access through high risk pools. Millions will soon appear on the rolls, many of them quickly taking up medical care - in most cases, with a family practice – thus increasing demands on primary care workers.
Prior to the Health Reform Act, no incentives have been in place to attract people considering medical field careers into the primary care sector. The nursing occupation has consistently been short. Family doctors are not abundant. With 2010 opening medical insurance up to all sick children, the emergency wards will see a reduction in cases while family practices become overwhelmed. Getting patients out of emergency room treatments and into early primary care was one of the main objectives of the law. Most of America's yearly $2 trillion dollars spent on health care go to emergency rooms, where the poor inevitably come to receive treatment for diseases that might have been taken care of at the primary level. Primary care is always less expensive than emergency room care. America will save billions by shifting care out of the emergency room and into a primary physician's office, but without enough primary care professionals, how will the demand be met?
The increase in demand for primary care professionals will certainly become greater in the years ahead. In 2014, all Americans will be required to have health care insurance. Of the 50 million uninsured now, 38 million are expected to be insured by 2019. Even if people just now looking into medical field careers were to enter the primary care field, it wouldn't be for at least another 7 years before those professionals were able to absorb the increase in demand. Something must be done now to attract people looking into medical field careers in primary care - if we're going to be able to meet the demand.
Fortunately, the new law has anticipated this need for recruits into primary care. The law provides for scholastic aid and five years of funding aimed at increasing the ranks of primary care professionals. That means those going into the medical field will find scholarships and grants more easily obtainable. Not only will loans for training in the field be easier to get, but loan payback rates for those going into primary care will be low and easy. Crowning these benefits, primary care professionals will also receive higher pay.
If you're thinking of embarking on one of the medical field careers available, now is the time to go for primary care. For this Health Reform Law to work, America needs your commitment now, and it's willing to pay for it.
