Florida physician workforce profiles

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• 82,939 — Number of physicians with active licenses in Florida. The state ranks 24th in the number of physicians per 100,000 population.
• Florida’s doctors skew old. The average age of practicing physicians is 54. More than a third (34.3%) are 60 or older — ranking the state 7th. Nearly two-thirds are over 50.
• Florida does a good job keeping physicians who complete their undergrad and graduate medical studies in the state. More than half (51.7%) of the students at public medical schools stay in the state. Nearly 60% of those who complete residencies and other graduate medical studies here stay in Florida. Those percentages place Florida among the top 10 states in the nation in retention.
• Overall, Florida has a lower percentage of women doctors than most states — 29.4%, ranking the state 39th. But among doctors younger than 40, the workforce is split almost evenly between male and female physicians.
• More than a third of Florida’s doctors (35.8%) are graduates of medical schools overseas. That’s the third highest percentage in the country.
• Primary care physicians make up more than a third of the active physician workforce (37.2%) and about 45% of primary care physicians specialize in internal medicine.
• About 80% of physicians report spending less than 10 hours a week on administrative tasks.
• Among about 2,000 physicians who indicated they were leaving Florida, only about 15% mentioned liability issues or medical malpractice insurance costs. Some 75% of the physicians shifting specialties from obstetrics gave liability as a reason for the change, however.

Sources: 2017 State Physician Workforce Data Report, AAMC; 2017 Physician Workforce Annual Report (state)

Gaining Docs, Losing Docs

Counties that gained physicians from 2012-17 include:

• Orange (372 more physicians)
• Hillsborough (333)
• Miami-Dade (249)
• Palm Beach (247)

Counties with big declines in the number of physicians from 2012-17 include:

• Hamilton lost six of its 10 physicians in that period
• Washington lost 11 of 21 physicians
• Madison lost five of its 13 doctors

Read more in our April issue.

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Tags: Healthcare, Feature