The federal government needs to do more to ensure an adequate supply of primary care physicians and their deployment in non-urban areas outside of the northeastern U.S.

Or so concludes a new study performed by the U.S. Governor Accountability Office.

According to the GAO report, efforts by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services have resulted in progress toward meeting both of these goals – but not enough progress.  With the federal government spending $15 billion on graduate medical education, GAO believes, HHS can and should do more to ensure an adequate supply of primary care physicians throughout the country and not just in urban areas.

Many private safety-net hospitals are teaching hospitals.

Learn more about what the GAO found and what it recommended in its new report Physician Workforce: Locations and Types of Graduate Training Were Largely Unchanged, and Federal Efforts May Not Be Sufficient to Meet Needs, which can be found here.