Workforce Development

Why is this important to family physicians?

More Americans depend on family physicians than on any other medical specialty; this is especially true for patients in rural and underserved areas. Collectively, family physicians are responsible for approximately one in five of all medical office visits in the United States per year. Family medicine residencies are essential to training the primary care workforce we need, while providing comprehensive care to communities and piloting innovations in patient-centered, cost-effective care that produces better health outcomes.

What recently happened on this topic?

In 2022, the Illinois Academy of Family Physicians joined a coalition of advocates for the creation of the Equity and Representation in Health Care Act, which seeks to (1) Provide new and increased funding to support loan repayment and scholarship programs; (2) Fill gaps by adding health care professions eligible to participate; and (3) Prioritize populations that continue to be underrepresented in the health care workforce; see coalition support paper.

Additional Resources

The federal Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 created the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education (THCGME) program to provide graduate medical education funding directly to community-based health centers that expand or establish new primary care residency programs. The THCGME program was re-authorized in September 2019, and was at risk of losing funding in 2021; however, the American Rescue Plan Act of 2021 (ARPA) was signed into law in March 2021, which included $330 million for the THCGME program, an increase in the per-resident amount by $10,000, click here.

In 2019, the Illinois legislature expanded support for primary care with the Underserved Physician Workforce Act (Public Act 101-118), and in 2020, the Illinois Department of Public Health sought more collaboration with medical groups to better understand the "economic effect" of related programming. In response, IAFP provided several resources regarding economic effect data relevant to workforce development, click here.

COVID-19 and the Rural Health Workforce: Recommendations to Improve Health in Illinois, Oct. 2021, release by SIU Medicine’s Department of Population Science and Policy, SIU’s Paul Simon Public Policy Institute, The University of Illinois Chicago’s School of Public Health and the SIU Medicine’s Center for Rural Health and Social Service Development