By RICHARD SKOLNIK
White Rock
In September 2023, the Albuquerque Journal published an article I wrote called Dear Red State Physicians, Please Move to New Mexico (link).
Thus, I was pleased to see the Governor launch in August 2024 an advertising campaign along the lines of my article.
My article was written in a somewhat humorous style, since I understand there are a number of critical policy constraints that discourage physicians from wanting to practice in New Mexico. Unhappiness over a physician’s ability to practice in Texas or elsewhere according to the standards of care of her field will never be sufficient incentive to get physicians to move to New Mexico.
Unfortunately, it appears that the Governor and the legislature either don’t understand these constraints or are not willing to act on them. I encourage them, therefore, to carefully review the new report by Think New Mexico on the measures and legislation needed to address key healthcare workforce issues in our state (link).
These include:
- Reforming the state’s medical malpractice act
- Joining all ten interstate healthcare worker compacts
- Creating a centralized credentialing system
- Making New Mexico’s student loan repayment program for healthcare professionals more competitive
- Making New Mexico’s tax policy friendlier to healthcare workers
- Enhancing Medicaid reimbursement rates to healthcare providers
- Growing more of our own healthcare workers by expanding access to healthcare-related career and technical education (CTE) in high school
- Expanding access to higher education in healthcare fields by increasing salaries for the faculty training future healthcare professionals and providing a tax credit for the preceptors
- Importing more international medical graduates into New Mexico using some of the state’s one-time surplus from oil and gas taxes to create a $2 billion permanent fund for healthcare
In the absence of a time bound and early implementation of these measures, the Governor and the legislature will have to accept a legacy of failure on some of our most important healthcare issues.
(Richard Skolnik is the former Director for Health, Nutrition, and Population for South Asia at the World Bank. He was a Lecturer in global health at The George Washington University and Yale, where he still holds a Lecturer’s appointment. In addition, he was the Executive Director of a Harvard AIDS treatment program for three countries in Africa. Skolnik is also the Instructor for the Yale/Coursera course Essentials of Global Health and the author of Global Health 101, fourth edition.)