BOISE, Idaho — Staffing levels within Idaho’s medical system has been under the microscope in recent years. The COVID pandemic illustrated the capacity of Idaho’s system, but Idaho hasn’t really been "fully-staffed" when it comes to healthcare providers in several years, predating COVID.
According to a Kaiser Family Health Foundation study from 2019, Idaho was already dead last in the country when it came to the number of doctors per people.
There are plenty of stories and statistics that illustrate the overall burnout across the medical profession in Idaho and beyond. The stress and reality of working through a pandemic in Idaho that saw the medical system operating in crisis standards of care for months.
As the serious nature of the COVID pandemic ramped down there was hope that there would be a resurgence in medical professionals filling needs across Idaho.
Hospital and some political leaders say another factor impacting Idaho’s ability to have enough doctors, nurses, and specialists are recent changes to Idaho laws, specifically on the topic of abortion.
With the Dobbs v Jackson decision in the US Supreme Court, Idaho’s abortion ban went into effect. That law outlawed abortion in almost all situations, something medical professionals in Idaho have said is difficult to work with.
The first noticeable and newsworthy impact from that development came from North Idaho this past March. Bonner General announced it would stop delivering babies or offering other obstetrical care for several reasons. Loss of pediatrician coverage, a decrease in how many babies they deliver, but also because of Idaho's legal and political climate.
"Highly respected, talented physicians are leaving. Recruiting replacements will be extraordinarily difficult. In addition, the Idaho Legislature continues to introduce and pass bills that criminalize physicians for medical care nationally recognized as the standard of care," Bonner General wrote on their website.
KTVB recently spoke with a major hospital system across Idaho, Saint Alphonsus, about the topic. They told KTVB they are losing two-thirds of their maternal fetal medicine physicians because of Idaho’s political climate.
St. Luke’s Health System, the other major hospital system and Idaho’s largest, says they too are still seeing impacts from COVID and more recently the Gem State political climate.
Dr. Frank Johnson is Chief Medical Officer for St. Luke's Health System in Boise, Elmore, and McCall. He says the political climate and reality of laws passed is a clear factor in the situation.
“Burnout, that's real. We absolutely are seeing that. We have a high number of physicians and other providers who are saying, hey, I've had enough. I'm looking at retirement. I'm looking at that next phase of my life. That's definitely happening,” Johnson said.
It’s not community rumor or political wordplay, Idaho laws do impact the current medical roster.
“We have lost doctors because of the abortion laws. Total abortion ban law really comes down to that criminalization of the physician patient relationship. Doctors, my colleagues, myself are ethically committed to serve that patient in front of us, have shared decision making and have a discussion of risks, benefits, limitations. That's what we do and that's what our expectation is,” Johnson said. “When there are laws that criminalize that conversation, potentially criminalize that conversation that creates a lot of fear and anxiety for docs appropriately so, and the ability to feel supported in that relationship, that it's been eroded by that. So especially when it comes to OB docs or maternal fetal medicine docs, that's where the biggest impact on that law is.”
So, what do those numbers look like?
“The numbers that we have look like across the state, we've lost about 40% of maternal fetal medicine doctors here at St Luke's. It's a small number of maternal fetal medicine docs. We've had six. We're down to four. So, we're working. It's a third,” Johnson said.
Recruitment and retention of medical professionals is equally challenging for Idaho groups, Dr. Johnson says it is even more difficult now than it was during the peak of COVID.
“I would say that today I believe that we have seen the biggest immediate short-term impact of physicians leaving because of the because of the laws that are in place now. I believe, I don't know that for sure. What we're facing now is probably a bigger impact is that recruitment piece when this starts happening and physicians are feeling like the laws in the state of Idaho put an undue burden and a risk on their profession and on their practice and on their ethical responsibility, they tend to shy away,” Johnson said.
Dr. Johnson says to address the need of maternal fetal medicine physicians, St. Luke's brings in what are essentially traveling doctors.
They can fill need but aren't really a long-term solution as many of those doctors like to move around.
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