Brownback, Colyer will ask for $5 million to train more doctors in Kansas

State leaders said Friday that part of the governor’s upcoming budget proposal will take on the medical care shortage in rural Kansas.

Gov. Sam Brownback unveiled a small piece of his new budget plan Friday, when he and Lt. Gov. Jeff Colyer announced they will ask lawmakers for $5 million to help train Kansas doctors to serve in less-populated parts of the state.

“We’ve had a chronic long-term shortage of doctors in this state for as long as I can remember, and (it’s) particularly acute in rural areas,” Brownback said.

The money would be used to start new residency programs in Kansas. Those residency programs train new doctors as they start their careers.

Colyer said the residency programs could start in the next two to three years. The plan has not been finalized and will be presented to lawmakers as part of the governor’s budget proposal.

He estimated the training could produce between 50 and 100 doctors each year. The money the state uses to start the program could bring “tens of millions” more in federal funding, Colyer said.

Colyer, who is also a doctor, said it can cost roughly $100,000 a year to train residents.

The hope is that if doctors are trained in Kansas, Colyer said, they will stay in Kansas. Officials said they will need to recruit practicing doctors to train the up-and-coming physicians.

“That’s the long-term solution for us,” he said. “It guarantees us an opportunity for quality health care, continued development of our medical personnel, and it’s a great opportunity for better health for all Kansans.”

The plan presented Friday also included a call from the governor to explore and establish a medical school in the state to train doctors of osteopathic medicine. Doctors with that title are fully licensed physicians, according to the American Osteopathic Association’s website.

That also could help ease the rural health issues in the state, Brownback said.

Brownback said Friday that 92 of the state’s 105 counties are medically underserved.

“And for as long as I can remember, it has been about that high as a number,” Brownback said. “Many different solutions have been tried.”

The proposal the Republican leaders presented Friday focused on drawing down additional money from the federal government to help fund the residency proposal.

But Colyer was adamant that possible federal money from Medicaid expansion was not an answer to the problem.

“It would not have made a tremendous difference,” Colyer said

Sheldon Weisgrau, director of the Health Reform Resource Project, said that Medicaid expansion could indeed help rural Kansans.

“There’s a need for more doctors, and there’s a need for more personnel in rural Kansas,” Weisgrau said. “But at the end of the day, if the population is uninsured and not going to be able to pay those doctors, you’re not going to be able to keep them.”

The new session of the Kansas Legislature starts Monday. Brownback is expected to release his full budget plan next week.

The $5 million mentioned Friday was the first concrete portion of the budget made public by the Brownback administration.

The state is looking at more than $1 billion in budget shortfalls through fiscal year 2019. That includes the roughly $342 million shortfall lawmakers already face this year.

This story was originally published January 6, 2017 at 4:08 PM with the headline "Brownback, Colyer will ask for $5 million to train more doctors in Kansas."