Conflicting data complicates picture of New Mexico's physician shortage

In some parts of New Mexico, there's been a physician shortage for more than 40 years, federal data shows.

Now it's a crisis, according to hospital, physician and other groups waging a high-profile campaign to convince state lawmakers that fixing medical malpractice laws is a key solution.

But the debate over how many physicians work in New Mexico, and how many doctors the state has lost or gained in recent years, is muddied by a lack of conclusive and sometimes conflicting data, the Journal has found.

New Mexico Medical Board data shows the number of licensed physicians has jumped more than 113% since 2019; yet a private national physician advocacy nonprofit contends the state lost 248 physicians during that same time.

Since 2011, the state has relied on a University of New Mexico Health Sciences Center annual report to track physician and other medical data numbers, but a cyberattack that hit state regulatory files has resulted in no updated counts since 2021.

Two national organizations say New Mexico had from 5,800 to 6,400 active physicians in 2024, the most recent year available. 

Data from KFF, formerly Kaiser Family Foundation, showed that as of last summer New Mexico actually had a higher per capita number of doctors than Nevada, Arizona, Colorado, Oklahoma and Texas. According to KFF, there were 6,826 total physicians practicing in New Mexico in 2024, up from 5,830 in 2019. 

The question of what the doctor shortage looks like surfaced Friday during a Senate floor session on a proposed bill to permit New Mexico to join the interstate medical compacts.

On Friday, state Sen. Jay Block, R-Rio Rancho, a proponent of changing medical malpractice laws, asked state Sen. Linda Trujillo, D-Santa Fe, "you would agree that we have been losing health care providers?"

"That's a mixed question that I don't really have an answer to," said Trujillo, a co-sponsor of Senate Bill 1, which is aimed at increasing the number of physicians. She cited a lack of recent data caused by the cyberattack.

"I'm not really confident as to the statistics..." Trujillo added.

"We have the statistics," Block replied. He later gave the figure of 248 that came from the New Mexico Medical Society via the Physicians Advocacy Institute, a nonprofit organization.

The 248 number — sourced from Medicare billing and other data — is the one most commonly cited in discussion of the matter, both at the Legislature and among physician and hospital groups.

"Some reports indicated as many as 700 were lost over a similar period," Block said during debate on the Senate floor. "I think the 248 is fairly accurate."

The federal government has designated 32 of New Mexico's 33 counties as shortage areas, but the magnitude of the current shortage often depends on the source.

"It’s no secret that there’s a health care crisis in New Mexico due to provider shortages. We are the only state in the nation to lose doctors every year since 2019 — a net loss of 248 physicians. The result? Patients with complex conditions have nowhere to turn. There are not enough specialists. There are not enough available appointments. And people are suffering unnecessarily," according to the Patient-Led group, which states on its website that it was founded by the New Mexico Medical Society, the New Mexico Hospital Association, the Greater Albuquerque Medical Association and the Sacramento Mountains Foundation, based in Alamogordo.

The key figure cited by malpractice law reform advocates, including hospital and physician groups, is the loss of 248 doctors between 2019 and 2024, at a time when the nationwide doctor shortage was easing across the U.S.

The physician count was taken from a presentation to the New Mexico Medical Society and separately to the New Mexico Hospital Association, said Matthew Katz, of MCK Health Strategies, which assisted on the report.

The number excludes retired physicians, and those not clinically practicing, such as those working for a health insurer or biotech firm.

"If they are not seeing patients, then patients cannot access them for care and treatment," Katz told the Journal in an email. The study is tied to a Medicare claims database to find physicians who are billing traditional Medicare, although there are a few Medicare Advantage claims included, he added.

The survey reported that New Mexico had 3,039 practicing physicians in 2019 and 2,791 five years later, marking an 8.1% decrease.

Even national datasets are mixed.

Nationally, the Physicians Advocacy Institute study showed 647,998 practicing physicians nationwide in 2024, up 44,272, or 7.3%, from 2019's total of 603,726.

But that number is about 200,000 fewer than the national direct care physician counts reported by the American Association of Medical Colleges and the American Medical Association (AMA).

According to those sources, there were approximately 800,000 to 840,000 physicians in the U.S. providing direct patient care, out of over 930,000 professionally active physicians, with figures varying slightly by source.

Gaps in state government data

The New Mexico Health Care Workforce Committee was created by state law in 2011 to track the number of physicians and other health care professions. The committee produces an annual report under the leadership of the University of New Mexico Health Sciences.

But the committee has been unable to provide updated numbers since 2021 for physicians and other health care professions because of a 2022 ransomware attack and data breach at the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department (RLD), according to the committee's 2025 annual report.

"Unfortunately, the attack will continue to impact this report's ability to provide updated, comprehensive information for all 14 professions until 2027, as all the professions renew their licenses on a multi-year rotating basis," Hengameh Raissy, chair of the Health Care Workforce Committee, wrote in the 2025 annual report.

In response to Journal questions, a spokesperson for UNM Health Sciences declined comment about the long gap in data and referred questions to the New Mexico Regulation and Licensing Department.

The New Mexico Medical Board is an autonomous board, said Melissa Salazar, director of RLD's Boards and Commissions Division.

RLD posted data about physicians until the 2022 data breach but no longer does so, she said.

The New Mexico Medical Board provides data about the number of licensed physicians in the state, but those numbers provide an illusory picture of how many doctors are actively treating patients in New Mexico.

The number of physicians with New Mexico medical licenses has more than doubled in six years, from 6,043 in 2019 to 12,876 in 2025. However, those numbers include physicians who do not practice in the state and others who are retired or "inactive" but maintain their New Mexico medical licenses.

Nationwide, nearly a quarter of U.S. physicians hold medical licenses in multiple states, according to a study by the Federation of State Medical Boards.

"Multi-state licensure is on the rise, with 24% of physicians holding more than one license, a trend accelerated by regulatory innovations such as the Interstate Medical Licensure Compact and the expansion of telehealth services," according to a 2024 census of licensed physicians performed by the Federation of State Medical Boards.

"In 2024 alone, a record 146,000 licenses were issued by state medical boards," the authors of the census article wrote. "Despite these positive trends, the physician workforce faces persistent shortages, rising attrition rates, and growing demand for health care services."

At a Nov. 5 meeting of the Legislature's interim Health and Human Services Committee, Rep. Jenifer Jones, R-Deming, pointed to a handout from the state Medical Board that showed the state was gaining physicians every year.

"That looks wonderful," Jones said, asking for more details from the presenter, Medical Board chairwoman Dr. Karen Carson.

"Unfortunately, it's difficult to drill down on that data," Carson said. 

She cited a UNMH health care workforce report showing that half of the licensees aren't working in New Mexico. "It's very difficult to drill down on whether people are actually practicing in New Mexico," Carson added.

Shortage history 

Nearly 13 years ago, a 2013 report by staff of the state Legislative Finance Committee reported that, "Despite wide acceptance of a physician shortage, particularly in primary care, the state lacks a strong measure for quantifying shortages."

Even back then, the LFC reported, "43.5% of New Mexico's practicing physicians report their practice is full and they cannot accept new patients, or they can only accept a few more patients."

Federal data shows that at least five counties in New Mexico, all rural, are designated as critical shortage areas for the lack of enough physicians. Several of those designations date back to 1978, with McKinley County having been on the list since 1979.