Patients Primero
Who we are: Patients First! Patients Primero is a rapidly growing group of nonpartisan citizens that advocates for change that will improve access to quality health care throughout New Mexico.
Our Mission: To ensure that access to quality healthcare is on the legislative agenda at all levels (city, county, state) until comprehensive, sustainable legislation is enacted.
Our Goals
- Educate voters about factors driving the provider shortage.
- Create partnerships to create strength for change.
- Collaborate with legislators to enact comprehensive, sustainable legislation.
- All New Mexicans deserve a quality healthcare system that is readily available.
- Lack of physicians is now the greatest barrier to a quality healthcare system.
- No person with a medical emergency or about to give birth should have to risk driving for hours to access care.
- Our leaders must listen to physicians and take immediate action.
- Any patient who has been harmed due to medical malpractice must be fairly compensated.
Physicians tell us:
- They want to provide the best care for their patients.
- They fear closing their practices due to escalating costs and low reimbursement.
- Their malpractice premiums have increased exponentially since the 2021 malpractice legislation.
- Their patients must wait too long for appointments.
- They have difficulty recruiting physicians to New Mexico.
| One of the first things my patients ask is, “Are you going to be leaving?” “Doctors keep leaving, and I have to find new primary care providers” “My current primary doc cancelled my six-month follow-up and pushed me out to one year because she has too many patients and not enough time to see everyone.” “We have been in New Mexico for three years and have gone through three primary care providers because they keep leaving.” | “The wait to become a new patient of a primary care doctor seems to be 6-8 months.“ “The wait to see a specialist was two months, with another 2 month’ wait for treatment.” “I have to go to specialists in Albuquerque, El Paso, and Phoenix for help.” |
Our legislators must listen, believe, and respect what physicians are telling them. Then they must take immediate action to address the barriers to building a good healthcare system.
How Bad is the Shortage?
New Mexico’s shortage of healthcare providers is a full-blown crisis. Lives are at stake. If you do find a physician, you can expect a long waiting time for an appointment. And a specialist? If you can find one, you may need to wait at least four to six months for an appointment and travel a long distance. That is, if you have the resources to travel; many New Mexicans do not.
“Frustrating long waits between appointments mostly. Had an MRI for an ENT doctor in January this year. I was supposed to have a follow-up with same ENT doctor in February. They cancelled on me at the last minute and rescheduled me for an appointment in May, only to get cancelled again and rescheduled with a second ENT doctor for an appointment in July (because the first ENT doctor moved to Albuquerque). I got a call today telling me they needed to cancel my July appointment with this second ENT doctor and reschedule me with a third ENT doctor and that appointment is now in November.”
If you live in rural New Mexico, the situation is especially dire. Hospitals and clinics have closed; more are on the brink of closing. Patients have no choice but to drive hours to access necessary care, placing medical emergencies and women about to give birth at extreme risk throughout the state.
The Bottom Line
- All of us are or will be patients. We need access to quality healthcare within our community.
- We need to catch cancer early and beat the disease. Deliver babies in hospitals instead of on highways, diagnoses and treat diabetes before having to amputate limbs.
- If reforms aren’t enacted, delays in accessing care will get worse; the shortage of providers will grow, and patients will continue to suffer and die.
- Patients who are harmed deserve fair compensation.
- Without financial stability, our healthcare system cannot meet the needs of the people of New Mexico.
- Legislators are responsible for creating a viable environment for providers and access for patients.
- A comprehensive approach that considers and balances the entire healthcare system is needed
Lawmakers and the governor have a choice: Keep patients waiting or solve an urgent crisis. The right decision is obvious. How many New Mexicans have to suffer before our leaders solve this crisis?
This is not about politics. This is not a Red or Blue issue. This is about patients.
Other states have dealt with challenges to access care; New Mexico can too.
