The shortage of PCPs is a money problem, not a symptom of a broken model.
People smart enough to go to med school are (generally) also smart enough to do an ROI analysis. If I can make $500k/yr as an oncologist and pay off my student loans in 10 years vs. getting paid $150k/yr as a PCP and pay off my student loans in 30 years, which route am I going to choose? People that want to be PCPs are making the choice to go into higher-paying specialties just because it is expensive to become a doctor in the first place.
Obviously it is possible to change the economic incentives to increase the supply of PCPs. One simple way would be to just create full-ride scholarships for those that want to be PCPs to dramatically increase the ROI for being a PCP.
People smart enough to go to med school are (generally) also smart enough to do an ROI analysis. If I can make $500k/yr as an oncologist and pay off my student loans in 10 years vs. getting paid $150k/yr as a PCP and pay off my student loans in 30 years, which route am I going to choose? People that want to be PCPs are making the choice to go into higher-paying specialties just because it is expensive to become a doctor in the first place.
Obviously it is possible to change the economic incentives to increase the supply of PCPs. One simple way would be to just create full-ride scholarships for those that want to be PCPs to dramatically increase the ROI for being a PCP.