Plan to Attract Doctors Aims at Minority Areas

The Deukmejian Administration announced Thursday that it will introduce legislation to attract more family physicians into 200 “medically underserved” minority communities in California--four in San Diego County.

The program, modeled after President Reagan’s business enterprise zones, would create health-care enterprise zones in areas that have less than one doctor per 2,000 residents, said Larry Meeks, director of the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development.

The areas in San Diego County include parts of Linda Vista, El Cajon, Southeast San Diego and San Ysidro.

Meeks said the administration has not yet decided what incentives to offer doctors to practice in these areas. He said the program might offer financial incentives, including lower malpractice insurance, lower state income taxes or grants, and loans to help doctors build offices.

“If a doctor is getting these types of incentives,” Meeks said, “then it makes these underserved areas more attractive.”

Meeks said he is not sure how much the program will cost taxpayers but that he believes it will be approved when it is introduced next session.

He said, however, that he does foresee two possible obstacles to the project. Courts may find the incentives are unconstitutional because they appear to favor only one sector of the public, Meeks said. There is also a possibility that physicians already in those areas could feel they are being slighted in favor of the newcomers, he added.

Despite the possible problems, Meeks said he will begin meeting with community leaders and members of the medical profession to determine which incentives might attract doctors. He said he has already met with several key legislators and that each seemed receptive to the idea.

Some major aims of the program would be to lower infant mortality rates, provide better prenatal care for mothers, decrease the death rate from preventable diseases and raise the average life expectancy of minorities.

Meeks said these objectives can be accomplished by educating minorities about health care, and by providing family physicians who will feel they are part of the neighborhoods--physicians who will stay there and take an active interest in the residents. New medical school graduates would be a prime target, he said.

Meeks said that although results of the program might not be apparent for several years, he believes the program would work.

“This is not a silver bullet nor magic wand enterprise,” he said. “Everything has to work within a time frame. To say we want instant gratification is not realistic. I am very positive about it. There are always people who will say it will never work.”

Attracting physicians to minority communities is only part of the three-part proposal, Meeks said. Another phase would bring together the directors of all state health programs to coordinate and improve the quality of existing programs. The proposal would also create a Minority Health Information Unit that would measure any progress or inefficiencies in minority health care. Its collected data would be distributed to public and private organizations, Meeks said.

Since the two final phases need no approval by state legislators, they will be implemented immediately, he said.