CARLISLE Regardless of the ongoing political debate about the Affordable Care Act, officials and advocates say the current health care industry faces challenges when it comes to making parts of the act successful in Pennsylvania.

Panelists and audience members at the Building Common Ground Summit Saturday morning at Trickett Hall at Penn State Dickinson School of Law voiced concerns over those challenges and what is actually available in the health care industry.

Panelists focused their concern on the number of primary care physicians who would be available to take on the potential increase in newly insured patients looking for the complete coverage of preventative and wellness services.

While answering a submitted question from the crowd, Becca Raley, executive director of Partnership for Better Health, said there has been a problem for years with the availability of primary care physicians a problem that will become more prominent as more people receive new Affordable Care Act plans.

Raley cited the Community Health Needs Assessment completed last year by Holy Spirit Health System, PinnacleHealth and Penn State Hershey Medical Center, an assessment that covered five counties in the Midstate. Raley focused on the data for Perry County, an area in dire need of primary care.

Its a county with basically no health infrastructure whatsoever, she said. There are more than 3,000 people per primary care physician.

Panelist Athena Smith Ford, advocacy director of the Pennsylvania Health Access Network, said movement is taking place to help address the low number of primary care physicians. Like Raley, she said many students graduating from medical school even those intending to go into family medicine are choosing higher-paying specialties. Ford said the motivation for students to choose specialty fields heavily relies on the fact those graduates will have sizeable loans to pay off.

A program that started in 2010, however, is available for graduates to help prevent that move to specialty services, Ford said.

It pays off student loans to have primary care physicians in under-served areas, she said.

Ford said measures exist in the Affordable Care Act to provide more funding for the program. It will take time to build up the available number of primary care physicians, nurse practitioners and mental health providers, but Ford said there has already been a significant increase in the number of primary care physicians available since that program was implemented.

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Health Care Checkup: Advocates say health care industry not ready for ACA