Meeting Underserved Patient Demands With Foreign Physicians

The Patient Protection and Accountable Care Act (the Affordable Care Act) contains a number of provisions aimed at increasing access to health care insurance to millions of Americans without coverage.  This increased access to health care insurance will lead to an increased demand for physician services.  In order to provide for the increase in physician demand, the Affordable Care Act introduced a number of incentives aimed at increasing the number of physicians in the workforce, including modifying federal Medicare payments for medical residency training, authorizing additional funding for medical residency training, and offering additional loan forgiveness and scholarship programs for medical students.  While these incentives may eventually increase the output of physicians in the workforce, the shortage of physicians available is a current problem.