We need doctors. Texas has them.

Elizabeth Heller Allen

For years, New Mexico has been seriously short of virtually all doctors: primary care, pediatricians, dentists, eye doctors and other specialists … and all the people who help them care for patients. It can take months to see a specialist and weeks to see a primary care physician if you can find one. We are short almost 13,000 health care workers to serve our 2.1 million residents. That includes every kind of healthcare worker like EMTs, pharmacists and physical therapists as well as physicians and nurses.

This shortage is getting worse as doctors quit practicing here due to high costs and low reimbursement by Medicare and Medicaid. From 2017-2021, New Mexico lost 30% of our primary care providers. That’s more than 700 doctors — think how many more New Mexicans could have been served!

We should not tolerate this any longer. New Mexicans deserve better, and we have a unique opportunity to recruit new doctors, starting right now … specifically those who no longer want to practice in Texas. They certainly include women’s health specialists, but many others are frustrated by a toxic environment as politicians second-guess doctors, override best practices, threaten criminal prosecution, try to access private patient records and encourage citizen bounty hunters who track people seeking care outside of Texas.

Governor Lujan Grisham was on the right track several months ago with billboards in Texas encouraging doctors to move here. It was a good idea — gutsy and bold. It failed because New Mexico’s laws make it too difficult and expensive for doctors to live and practice here. Unlike many of New Mexico’s problems, this one has solutions that have proven to work and can be implemented right now with a two-pronged approach: legislative reform and economic development.

For the upcoming January/February legislative session, Think New Mexico has published 10 recommendations to solve our health care worker shortage — all thoroughly researched and proven. The top three are:

1. Reform malpractice insurance. We have the second-highest rate of medical malpractice lawsuits in the country. Insurance carriers covering health care workers lost more money per person here than in any other state. As premiums rise and carriers refuse to keep losing money, both doctors and insurance companies are leaving the state. Tort reform will be vigorously resisted by lawyers who earn huge fees suing doctors, but cutting their percentages of awards will still enable victims to be fairly paid for their injuries. With legislators receiving campaign contributions over $500,000 from trial lawyers, it’s easy to see why medical malpractice reform might be resisted, but the current system is killing us.
2. Join all 10 major interstate health care compacts. Right now, New Mexico does not recognize medical licenses from other states, so seeking care from out-of-state specialists is difficult.
3. Make New Mexico’s tax policy more friendly to health care workers. We can compete with Texas on lower real estate taxes, but healthcare workers must pay our Gross Receipts Tax, and it’s a show-stopper.

Beyond legislative changes, we need to leverage our Department of Economic Development to attract and retain people and businesses, with a laser focus on health care workers. After all, companies won’t come here without good health care for their employees. With better information and incentives, we can convince more prospective workers to consider relocating here.

The time is now — let’s not chase doctors away as we recruit new ones. It might be a tough decision to leave Texas, but we can make it an easy one to come to New Mexico.

Elizabeth Heller Allen is a resident of Santa Fe with almost 10 years as an executive with two large healthcare systems. She also serves on the boards of Searchlight, Imagine New Mexico and the Santa Fe Community Foundation.