Earlier this month, the Rhode Island Senate released a new legislation package comprising 17 bills aimed at improving state health care. The bills propose funding for a medical school at the University of Rhode Island, loan repayment and scholarship programs for primary care physicians and financial support for mental health hotlines, among other initiatives.
“These proposals will support Rhode Islanders in crisis, protect patients and providers, and strengthen the health workforce,” Chairwoman of the Senate Committee on Health and Human Services and State Sen. Melissa Murray (D-Woonsocket, North Smithfield) said in a state press release. “Achieving our goals will be a long-haul effort, and our chamber remains truly committed to seeing it through.”
Several of the proposed bills address the state’s current shortage of primary care providers. When physician group Anchor Medical Associates closed last summer, around 25,000 R.I. patients were left without a primary care physician.
To mitigate this shortage, one of the bills advocates for an initial $5 million in funding for the new University of Rhode Island medical school, with additional funding planned for the future.
“Having a local, public medical school … would enable more young doctors to enter primary care and to practice in our state once they graduate,” Senate spokesperson Greg Pare wrote in a January press release.
High medical school costs can deter newly graduated medical students from pursuing a career in primary care, according to State Sen. Pamela Lauria (D-Barrington, Bristol, East Providence).
Lauria, who works as a primary care nurse practitioner in Providence, introduced three of the 17 bills. One of these bills would fund scholarships for students who are committed to becoming primary care physicians in Rhode Island. Another bill introduced by Senate President Pro Tempore Hanna Gallo would establish a loan repayment program for primary care providers.
“One of the things that drives clinicians to go into higher-paying specialties rather than primary care is that it costs so much money to go to medical school,” Lauria said. “We’re looking at the fact that Rhode Island is about to be the only state without a public medical school with public tuition rates. So we’re trying to make it more economically feasible.”
But Geoffrey Berg, a primary care doctor in Rhode Island, said that the new medical school may not fully address the primary care shortage.
“If you go to the URI medical school, and you can make more money as a cardiologist … or as an orthopedist, that’s where you’re going to gravitate to,” Berg said. “There’s nothing about a URI medical school that’s going to change that.”
Lauria said that the school is just one facet of addressing the shortage. She noted that the school would cost around $22.5 million per year to run and is projected to have an economic impact that significantly outweighs the cost.
“When we look at economic development for the state, we’ve spent far more for far less benefit,” Lauria said.
The loan repayment and scholarship bills that Lauria and Gallo introduced require primary care providers return to Rhode Island after they have completed their degrees.
“You’re not going to get physicians here or nurse practitioners or PAs here if you can’t incentivize them to come in to stay,” Lauria said.
She noted that nearby states like Massachusetts and Connecticut have higher insurance reimbursement rates than Rhode Island, and that she has heard of many practitioners who live in Rhode Island working elsewhere due to higher wages.
Other proposed bills in the package aim to support Rhode Islanders in need of mental health support. One such bill includes the codification of “reliable, sustainable funding” for the Rhode Island 988 suicide hotline and BH Link, a state-launched mental health triage facility.
While the state provides the “vast majority” of funding for programs like 988 and BH Link, Horizon Health Care Partners has to absorb some costs, said Ryan Pickering, the director of communications and community partnerships for the nonprofit Horizon Health Care Partners, which operates both 988 and BH Link.
If passed, this legislation would “fund the programs in their entirety … as opposed to cobbling together different sources,” he added.
He noted that 988 and BH Link are important parts of the behavioral health care system because they allow patients to be triaged without going to a hospital’s emergency room.
“We’re in a position to really continue to change the behavioral health care landscape, and I think that there’s a good appetite to do so,” Pickering added. “I think folks are starting to understand that behavioral health and mental health needs to be taken as seriously as the medical emergency.”
Michelle Bi is a metro editor covering City Hall & Crime and State Politics & Justice. She is a sophomore from Oak Park, CA and studies English and IAPA. In her free time, you can find her playing guitar, the LA Times crossword or one of her 115 Spotify playlists.
