Boone Health continues to hire primary care providers among shortage
Marie Moyer
COLUMBIA, Mo. (KMIZ)
Boone Health is chipping away at Missouri’s primary care shortage, hiring 25 providers in the past 12 months, eight of whom are primary care providers.
Four additional primary care providers are expected to join Boone Health by the end of the year, according to a Wednesday press release from Boone Health. The release adds that each provider can accept 1,800 new patients.
“It’s not an 8-to-5 job. We do a lot of extra charting, we have to do a lot of extra reading to keep up the credentialing that we have, we obviously do research,” Boone Health Dr. Holly Boyer said. “We’ve got more people to be able to accept those new patients.
“Across the nation, there has been a strong need for primary care providers, and the mid-Missouri community is no different,” said Drew Wilkinson, Boone Health vice president of provider and ambulatory operations said in the press release.
According to Rural Health Information Hub, 106 out of 114 counties in the state are considered Health Professional Shortage Areas for primary care.
According to a Health Resources and Services Administration report from June, Missouri needs to add 476 primary care physicians to address the state’s shortage rates.
“I’ve heard from patients that they’re being booked out six months, sometimes eight months, to get into a primary care physician,” Boyer said. “It’s been really hard for patients to be seen in a timely fashion just because of the shortage.”
Both SSM Health St. Mary’s in Jefferson City and MU Health Care are focusing on increasing numbers. MU Health Care reported in June that 13 providers were expected to join its workforce in July.
The next primary care provider expected to join Boone Health will begin working at Boone’s Moberly Clinic in December.