Underserved vs Rural

[Lady Tokimi]

Are these two the same thing?

My definition of underserved pretty much means any community in which there are more patients than doctors and rural areas are where there are few doctors and low medical supplies??

Am i right about this???

---

Members don't see this ad.

 

[shan-bot 2000]

Are these two the same thing?

My definition of underserved pretty much means any community in which there are more patients than doctors and rural areas are where there are few doctors and low medical supplies??

Am i right about this???

your definition of "underserved" is pretty good.
but "rural" is not the same thing as "underserved"

rural means out in the stix somewhere

urban means in the city somewhere

underserved means there are not enough doctors for the number of patients in that area.

both rural and urban areas can be underserved. but just because you happen to be in a rural or urban environment does not mean you are necessarily in an underserved area. it all depends on the doctor to patient ratio.

 

[f_w]

The department of health an human services 'bureau of primary health care' classifies areas depending on their physician supply. There are two databases, one is related to the availability of health care personnel and contains the 'healthcare personnel shortage areas' (HPSA). The other database is more based on the availability of healthcare in general, it contains ares defined as 'medically underserved area' (MUA) or 'medically underserved population' (MUP). (the governor of a state can request HHS to declare an area as MUA even if there are enough physicians based on the numbers. This is how inner-city areas around major medical centers end up MUA)

These designations are important if you seek funding for a community health center or if you want to get loan-repayment through the national health service corps.

rural vs urban are designations the census bureau comes up with. They relate to population density and settlement patterns.

 

[Lady Tokimi]

So then how does a DO help underserved communities?

 

[MoosePilot]

So then how does a DO help underserved communities?

By reducing the shortage of doctors?

The questions seems too obvious, I must be missing something. Underserved means "not enough doctors". Add a doctor and you're one doctor closer to not being underserved.

 

[FutureDocDO]

By reducing the shortage of doctors?

The questions seems too obvious, I must be missing something. Underserved means "not enough doctors". Add a doctor and you're one doctor closer to not being underserved.

That simple? LOL

 

[ambernikel]

In Missouri its done by counties. Pretty much every county in my area is considered underserved. Some of the other factors include drive time to hospitals and availablities of physicians, etc. If you think rural I generally think of town vs small city. If it's a town then it's probably rural. I live in a city and we have two hospitals and we're still considered underserved because of the large portion of underserved (rural)areas all around us. When you count everyone who is coming to our docs & hospitals the ratios get a lot different. Plus our counties includes a lot more than just our city. Next hospital (that's not a sub of ours) is 1 1/2 hrs away S or W or 3 1/2-4 hrs N. Alot of people have to drive those distances to see specialists and stuff. If you think of driving from the outlying rural areas you can be putting in ALOT of mileage just to get an eval that can take months to get into and then months to get anything done about it. A lot of the out of town docs only see our folk once a month, so they fill up quickly. It's hard esp when it's a child with possible brain injury having to wait so long. We also have a lot of medicaid/medicare pts that go untreated bc docs who accept it are few & far between. Then add in HMO's and you're even more limited. It can be really frustrating esp at the Urgent Care bc we see a lot of pts w/o family docs or peds or who are waiting to get in.

Moral: D.O.s typically go into family medicine/pediatrics and many go into rural & underserved areas I think bc a lot of schools cater to students from those areas... like me! Also the philosophy helps gear towards the needy, I think.

 

[RetiringInMy80s]

Rural basically means in the middle of nowhere or a real small town (ala the film Doc Hollywood where they trapped Michael J. Fox's character after he hit a fence forcing him to do community service hours in their hospital)

I think "underserved" could include rural but could also include Native American Reservations (not all of which are rural these days) or migrant workers or inner city areas where people don't want to practice and low income clinics for things like HIV, prisons, juvenile corrections facilities and a long list of other places people don't go to medical school with ambitions of practicing.