Access to ophthalmic specialty care increasingly challenging in rural areas

Medical Xpress January 6, 2025
Lori Solomon

Rural areas are increasingly facing ophthalmic subspecialty surgeon shortages, according to a study published online Jan. 2 in JAMA Ophthalmology.

Aishah Ahmed, from the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, and colleagues assessed the geographic distribution of the ophthalmic subspecialist surgeon workforce and evaluated factors associated with practicing in rural areas.

The analysis included Medicare Fee-for-Service claims for 1.6 million patients (aged 65 years and older) who underwent subspecialized ophthalmic procedures (2012 through 2022) and 13,526 surgeons performing at least one subspecialty procedure from the following subspecialties: cornea, glaucoma, oculoplastic, retina, or strabismus.

The researchers found that 72.6 percent of the surgeons were male and 33.2 percent practiced in the South. Subspecialty classification included 18.5 percent cornea subspecialists,...