States Address Provider Shortages to Meet the Health Care Demands of the Pandemic

This commentary discusses how states are mobilizing to meet the crushing health care demands resulting from the COVID-19 pandemic. Policymakers are increasing the flexibility and capacity of their health care systems. One strategy is to address provider shortages that existed even before the pandemic by loosening health care licensing requirements and expanding scope-of-practice rules.

In response to the COVID-19 pandemic, nearly every state has made some change to their licensing requirements to increase the pool of available health professionals.