How should New Mexico deal with our deepening doctor shortage?
It’s a national problem, but especially bad here. Reasons include our sparse population, the paucity of each year’s UNM Medical School graduates, the high number of hospitals here owned by private equity, our gross receipts tax, and our relatively high malpractice insurance rates. Too, many people here are on government insurance, which tends to reimburse providers at lower rates.
During 2019-2024, New Mexico was the only state with a net loss of physicians. All New Mexico counties but one are are classified as Health Professional Shortage Areas. Our doctors’ older average age means we’ll see higher retirement figures than most states.
I like Senator Bill Soules proposal to use a small amount of our permanent fund to increase residencies for doctors here. The feds fund those, but there aren’t enough. Many doctors stay where they did their residencies. In those years, one makes contacts and friends, finds the good tennis or poker games, or maybe marries someone local. But this would have no immediate impact.
In 48 states, a doctor isn’t required to charge patients gross receipts tax. Patients pay less and doctors have no irritating and time-consuming state GRT paperwork. This isn’t the major factor in doctors’ selections of states; but it’s an unnecessary burden, unfair to patients, and wholly in the state government’s hands.
Another obvious problem is our disproportionate number of private-equity-owned hospitals. Some physicians seek to escape corporate limits on the time they can spend with patients. Some have told me of hospital quality control being minimized. Prior research taught me that safety concerns and overall results decline when private equity takes over a hospital. New Mexico has the highest proportion of private equity-owned hospitals in the country at 38%, compared with a national average of 8%. One Albuquerque medical malpractice attorney, testified to a legislative committee hearing that medical negligence occurs more often in New Mexico because of this high number of private equity-owned hospitals. (I’m agree!) She suggested a Corporate Practice of Medicine statute guaranteeing providers more autonomy and requiring safe nurse-to-patient ratios.
The real tension is between folks who would end or cap punitive damages, or otherwise limit patient’s rights, so as to decrease the high malpractice insurance rates that contribute to physicians leaving and new physicians avoiding our state. (Even if reformers exaggerate this problem, as trial lawyers insist, it exists.) New Mexico has a very high number of such lawsuits, per capita. Some folks are suggesting draconian measures. Trial lawyers – for a mix of good and bad motives – are pushing back. Reformers wrongly demonize the trial lawyers; but trial lawyers are significant players in our state government, and they got on the wrong side of the Ethics Commission by trying to hide an advocacy group’s funding. I hate everyone, but have some suggestions.
I like the suggestion that we allow doctors to apologize and explain without having that hung around the doctor’s neck by plaintiff’s lawyer. When patients whose surgery has gone wrong feel unheard, or disrespected, that can encourage litigation and render it more bitter. Some bad results are not mistakes. If 1% of patients have some negative side effect, someone’s in that 1%. Doctors should be able to express sadness about what happened without having that used against them at trial.
This topic won’t fit in one column. My suggestions regarding litigation will appear next Sunday, in Part II.
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[The above column appeared Sunday, 18 January 2026, in the Las Cruces Sun-News and will presently appear on the newspaper’s website and on KRWG’s website (under Local Viewpoints). A shortened and sharpened radio commentary version of this Sunday column will air during the week on KRWG (90.1 FM) and on KTAL-LP (101.5 FM / http://www.lccommunityradio.org/). ]
[As noted, this is Part I of my comments on this complex situation. I’m no expert; but I’ve had the benefit of discussing this on radio with folks who are, and of sitting in on a recent meeting between a key legislator and three articulate doctors that featured frank and thooughtful discussion. ]
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