Primary care shortages have been a persistent issue in healthcare, with the number of Americans living in designated primary care shortages increasing by about 21% in 2025.
But new data indicates that relief may be on the horizon for the primary care workforce. A new interactive model developed and published by the McKinsey Health Institute and West Health May 19 found that while the primary care gap will persist through 2050, the shortage is projected to shrink.
Here are six findings from the model:
1. The analysis found that 250 million adult Americans required about 1.2 billion primary care visits in 2025, based on average care expectations for preventive wellness and medication management, equaling a demand of 4.8 visits per person. The country’s roughly 321,000 primary care providers can deliver more than 1 billion visits, leaving a gap of 170 million visits, or 45 million people whose primary care needs are not fully met.
2. An aging U.S. population is the main driver of growing demand, with the growth rate of Medicare enrollees projected to be two times faster than the rate of Medicaid and commercial enrollees between 2025 and 2030.
3. By 2030, the primary care cap will be 151 million visits, or 39 million people not getting primary care needs met.
4. The gap could shrink by 2040 as population growth is projected to flatten while the number of nurse practitioners in primary care grows. NPs are expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 2.8% between 2025 and 2050, much faster than the growth rate of internal medicine physicians and family medicine physicians, both at about 0.2% over the same period. The 2040 gap is projected to be 96 million visits, or 25 million people.
5. Come 2050, the gap will be 82 million visits, affecting 21 million people.
6. To close the primary care gap by 2050, McKinsey suggests that the workforce would need to either add one additional patient per provider at full productivity each day — which would require a 25% decrease in time spent on administrative tasks like after-hours documentation and EHR work, on top of physician burnout rates already above 53% — or add 20,000 more providers, requiring a 5% annual workforce increase.
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