New York’s doctors are held in high regard for their ability to promote, maintain and restore human health, but according to a recent report, they’re equally helpful to our state’s economy.
So why doesn’t anyone care that, more and more, they’re leaving the state in droves?
According to the American Medical Association, physicians in New York generate a total of more than 570,000 jobs — or 10 jobs for every doctor. In comparison, the legal profession generates 324,000 jobs, while higher education accounts for 320,000.
In terms of total annual wages and benefits, New York doctors generate $57 billion worth — a figure dramatically larger than the $39 billion generated by the state’s legal profession (nearly $23 billion) and higher-education sector (about $16 billion) combined.
On a national level, the AMA report shows that physicians engaged primarily in patient care generated $1.6 trillion in overall economic activity and supported 10 million jobs in 2012 (the most recent year covered by the report).
In New York, physicians contributed nearly $100 billion in total economic activity, with each and every New York doctor alone, on average, supporting almost $1.7 million in economic output.
The federal government says expenditures for physician services have a ripple effect through the economy, with every dollar applied to physician services supporting a further $1.62 in other business activity.
Despite the importance of physicians to the health of New Yorkers and to the continued vitality of New York’s economy, doctors here face numerous challenges.
And they have increasingly responded by quitting the state.
Recent research by the Center for Health Workforce Studies indicates that the number of physicians trained here who actually remain in New York has dramatically declined in the past decade, from 53 percent in 2001 to only 44 percent in 2012.
What specifically is driving them out?
For starters, medical-liability insurance costs in New York are sky-high — higher, in fact, than anywhere else in the nation. A neurosurgeon in Long Island, for example, faces a one-year premium of $330,000. That’s more than some doctors in the state earn in a year.
Government mandates as a condition of medical practice similarly make it more costly and less attractive to physicians here. These include requirements, for example, to check databases for certain prescription drugs and counseling for HIV and Hepatitis C tests.
New York, as most folks know, is also a high-tax state, and doing business here — given the high costs of everything from real estate to energy — is difficult.
Meanwhile, doctors here — as around the country — are seeing decreasing payments from Medicare and health insurers. Something has to give.
If Gov. Cuomo and New York lawmakers hope to halt the state’s doctor drain, they need to recognize the contributions physicians make to our economy and the challenges they face related to practicing in New York.
Having doctors leave the state will not only damage our outstanding but fragile health-care system, it will also hurt New York’s economy.
We need to do more to ensure that quality physicians remain here — for our economic as well as physical health.
Andrew Kleinman, MD, is president of The Medical Society of The State of New York, an organization of approximately 30,000 licensed physicians, medical residents and medical students.