Therefore, the American Academy of Family Physicians supports the position the inequities of payments under the DRG system between rural and urban hospitals should be abolished, and the AAFP will make reasonable efforts to ensure that these inequities and discrimination against rural people and their health care be discontinued so that access to quality medical care may be more universally preserved. Medical Education Access to high quality health care services for rural Americans continues to be dependent upon an adequate supply of rural physicians. Despite efforts to meet shortages in rural areas, there continues to be a shortage of physicians for rural areas.
Disincentives continue that discourage new physicians from entering rural areas.
A balanced and cooperative effort among those involved in medical education is needed to promote rural practice. This includes those actively teaching at the academic medical center and the community level as well as those providing funding for medical education on the federal, state and private level. All need to work together to provide support for training future rural physicians. Proven educational strategies can be utilized to promote careers in rural family medicine. Schools with selective admissions policies preferentially selecting students from rural and underserved communities have been shown to have a greater number of students entering practice in rural areas.