NYC Grants to Get Docs into Needy Areas

A program to get more doctors into the secluded corners of upstate New York and poor neighborhoods around New York City is announcing its first round of grants.
    
“Doctors Across New York'' is supposed to help the more than 25 percent of New York's population living in areas designated as underserved.
    
The state is awarding $11 million over five years to help doctors repay medical school loans in exchange for a five-year commitment to working in an underserved community in New York. Another $11 million is being awarded over the next two years to help physicians expand or establish medical practices.
    
“Recruiting physicians to rural areas such as ours has its own set of challenges, whether it's reimbursement, or salary, or quality of life,'' said Joe Riccio, a spokesman for Adirondack Medical Center. “We've always prided ourselves on being able to recruit unique individuals to this area, and this program, Doctors Across New York, will help attract new doctors at a time when they are critically needed.''
    
Adirondack Medical Center is based in Saranac Lake, 116 miles North of Albany. It has five satellite offices in the region. It can take more than a year to fill an empty position at the center, officials said. Sometimes they hire physicians to work as “temps'' for as long as six months, but it costs 30 to 50 percent more.
    
More than a year ago the hospital lost a doctor who was earning $150,000 a year to a Seattle practice that paid him $450,000 -- plus a $50,000 signing bonus. About half of all resident physicians leave New York state after completing their training.
    
The average physician in the United States graduating in 2006 had $130,571 in student loan debt, according to the American Medical Association.
    
“The burden of medical school debt is a major factor in a young doctor's decisions on where to work and whether to pursue a certain area of medicine,'' said Dr. Richard Daines, commissioner of the state Department of Health.
    
The funding will go to 83 doctors, who will get up to $150,000 over five years for loan repayment, while 126 medical practices will receive funding up to $100,000.
    
Roughly 25 percent of New Yorkers live in the 91 areas the federal government designated as having a shortage of primary care doctors. Some parts of the state also have shortages of critical specialists, for example, seven counties don't have a practicing obstetrician.
    
The program was introduced under former Gov. Eliot Spitzer and passed as part of the 2008-2009 budget.