The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, signed into law in 2010 and upheld by the U.S. Supreme Court last year, is expected to provide health care coverage to as many as 32 million Americans by 2019. As demand for health care expands, the need for accurate data about the current and future physician workforce will remain paramount. This census of actively licensed physicians in the United States and the District of Columbia represents data received from state medical boards in 2012 by the Federation of State Medical Boards. It demonstrates that the total population of licensed physicians (878,194) has expanded by 3% since 2010, is slightly older, has more women, and includes a substantive increase in physicians who graduated from a medical school in the Caribbean. As state medical boards begin to collect a Minimum Data Set about practicing physicians and their practice patterns in the years ahead, this information will inform decisions by policymakers, regulators and health care market participants to better align health care demand with supply.

There are 1,018,776 licensed physicians in the United States and the District of Columbia, representing a physician workforce that is 20% larger than it was a decade ago, according to data from 2020 compiled by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB). The licensed physician population has grown in number relative to the total population, but concerns about a doctor shortage remain as both the general and physician populations age. Late career physicians generally work fewer hours and retire at higher rates, while younger physicians place more emphasis on work-life balance that may also limit work hours, even as many older physicians have delayed retirement in recent years. The mean age of licensed physicians is now 51.7 years, a year higher than it was in 2010. The physician workforce is increasingly mixed in gender and type of physician, with more women and more individuals with Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degrees, specialty board certification and international medical degrees than a decade ago. The ability to inventory a nation’s health care workforce across all specialties and jurisdictions is essential to the delivery of quality health care where it is needed most. This paper marks the FSMB’s sixth biennial census of licensed physicians in the United States and the District of Columbia and provides valuable information about the nation’s available physician workforce, including information about medical degree type, location of undergraduate medical education, specialty certification, number of active licenses, age and sex. As the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the United States is not yet fully known, this report should help state medical boards as they consider changes to their statutes and regulations to facilitate telemedicine and licensure portability after the pandemic ends and before another national public health emergency.

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There are 985,026 physicians with Doctor of Medicine (MD) and Doctor of Osteopathic Medicine (DO) degrees licensed to practice medicine in the United States and the District of Columbia, according to physician census data compiled by the Federation of State Medical Boards (FSMB). These qualified physicians graduated from 2,089 medical schools in 167 countries and are available to serve a U.S. national population of 327,167,434. While the percentage of physicians who are international medical graduates have remained relatively stable over the last eight years, the percentage of physicians who are women, possess a DO degree, have three or more licenses, or are graduates of a medical school in the Caribbean have increased by varying degrees during that same period. This report marks the fifth biennial physician census that the FSMB has published, highlighting key characteristics of the nation's available physician workforce, including numbers of licensees by geographic region and state, type of medical degree, location of medical school, age, gender, specialty certification and number of active licenses per physician. The number of licensed physicians in the United States has been growing steadily, due in part to an expansion in the number of medical schools and students during the past two decades, even as concerns of a physician shortage to meet health care demands persist. The average age of licensed physicians continues to increase, and more licensed physicians appear to be specialty certified, though the latter finding may reflect more comprehensive reporting. This census was compiled using the FSMB's Physician Data Center (PDC), which collects, collates and analyzes physician data directly from the nation's state medical and osteopathic boards and is uniquely positioned to provide a comprehensive snapshot of information about licensed physicians. A periodic national census of this type offers useful demographic and licensure information about the available physician workforce that may be useful to policy makers, researchers and related health care organizations to better understand and address the nation's health care needs.