Arizona Primary Care Physician Workforce Report

The Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC) publishes an annual snapshot of the physician workforce by state using American Medical Association (AMA) Physician Masterfile data. AMA data includes active allopathic and osteopathic physicians working 20 hours a week or more. AAMC primary care data includes any physician with a self-reported primary specialty of family medicine, general practice, geriatric medicine (family practice), geriatric medicine (internal medicine), internal medicine, medicine-pediatrics, pediatrics, adolescent medicine (pediatrics) (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2017 ,p.3). 

Arizona ranks 31st at 235.8 total physicians (MD, DO) per 100,000 population (State median is 257.6) and 42nd at 77.9 primary care physicians per 100,000 (State Median is 90.8). See Figures 2 and 3. (Association of American Medical Colleges, 2017). 

This report uses publicly available physician data with the goals of: 

•    establishing a 2019 Arizona physician distribution and baseline,
•    reporting physicians with active licenses in Arizona who graduated from Arizona UME,
•    identifying limitations of the data,
•    using data to guide policy recommendations to increase the primary care physician workforce, including strategies for recruitment and retention, and
•    informing future efforts to improve the consistency and accuracy of health workforce data collection.

This report aims to provide data on the distribution of the physician workforce and the differences in the distribution of physicians by training location and specialty. This data can assist in efforts to ensure that Arizona develops programs and policies that build a health care system that addresses the needs of all communities.