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The United States faces a shortage of as many as 90,000 physicians by 2025, including a critical need for specialists to treat an aging population that will increasingly live with chronic disease, the association that represents medical schools and teaching hospitals reported Tuesday. (Bernstein, 3/3)

The demand for doctors in 2025 will exceed the number of practicing physicians by 46,100 to 90,400, the trade association for medical colleges predicted Tuesday, downgrading its earlier estimates of a medical labor squeeze. In 2010, the Association of American Medical Colleges projected a shortfall of 130,600 physicians. The estimates are often used by lobbyists and lawmakers to justify increased federal spending for the training of physicians through Medicare and Medicaid. (Adams, 3/3)

Like many states, Missouri is facing a doctor shortage. The supply of doctors isn't keeping up, even as the population ages and more people have health insurance to pay for medical care. The American Association of Medical Colleges estimates that the country will have a void of about 90,000 physicians by 2020—half of them in primary care. (Bouscaren, 3/4)

A government program that is providing care for some 500,000 patients and has successfully increased the number of primary-care physicians in underserved areas is in danger of folding. The federal Teaching Health Center program was created with a $230 million appropriation in Section 5508 of the Affordable Care Act and, as of 2014, it was helping to train 550 residents at 60 centers in 27 states and the District of Columbia in underserved rural areas and urban neighborhoods. (Robeznieks, 3/3)