The impending closure of Anchor Medical Associates means some 25,000 Rhode Islanders will soon be forced to find new doctors.
And the state already has a shortage of primary care doctors. As many as 400,000 Rhode Islanders already have no access to primary care.
That’s the problem Gov. Dan McKee hopes to alleviate.
“We know that it is alarming when people in the state of Rhode Island are unable to find a primary care doctor and we are going to do everything possible to connect them with the help they are looking for,” McKee said.
On Tuesday, the governor highlighted a series of steps he and his Health Care System Planning Cabinet are working on.
Among the proposed changes:
- Accelerating a proposed review of Medicaid reimbursement rates
- Requiring commercial insurers to double their spending on primary care by 2029.
- Demanding a 20% reduction in prior authorization requirements to make it easier for Rhode Islanders to get urgent care.
- Creating a $5 million state grant to encourage the hiring of additional doctors and nurses.
Expanding the student loan forgiveness program for health care professionals who commit to practicing in the state for at least two years after they graduate.
Many of the proposed changes would likely not take effect until Fiscal Year 2027 at the soonest.
Dr. Elizabeth Lange, a pediatrician with Waterman Pediatrics in East Providence, applauded the governor’s initiative.
“We can always do more,” she said. “So I’m appreciative of what people are doing now.”
“There is never enough to fix every problem that’s going on in the state,” she said. “There are many problems even beyond health care, and all of them are important.”
Rhode Island attorney general Peter Neronha was a good deal more critical, dismissing the governor’s action plan as little more than “bureaucratic nonsense and Tuesday-morning lip service.”
Neronha accused the governor of presenting “a slapdash response” to a political crisis.
As for Anchor Medical, which plans to close all its Rhode Island operations in the next several months, state officials said they are working with the company to help coordinate patient transfers.
But officials said it has been difficult to determine exactly how many of Anchor Medical’s patients need help finding new doctors.
McKee insisted his plan is a step in the right direction.
“We intend to take this very seriously,” he said. “We know that there are issues that individual households are dealing with right now, and we are trying to have a broad-based strategy.”
