Note: The report was updated in August 2018 to reflect updated data on the chart on page 18 and in the footnotes on pages 18, 19, and 20.

The number of licensed physicians in California has grown steadily over the past 20 years, increasing 44% between 1993 and 2013, and has outpaced the state’s 23% growth in population. Demand for physicians is expected to increase as the population ages. Ensuring access to care is a concern, as one-third of the state’s physicians are over age 60. California Physicians: Who They Are, How They Practice describes the physician market in California.

Key findings include:

The supply of licensed physicians does not accurately reflect their availability to provide care. Only 78% of physicians with active licenses provided patient care 20 or more hours per week.
Latinos were underrepresented among physicians. Latinos represented 38% of California’s population, but only 5% the state’s physicians were Latino.
Physicians were less likely to have uninsured patients in their practice than patients with any type of health insurance.
Twenty-seven percent of physicians (35% of PCPs and 23% of specialists) attended medical school in a foreign country.
Physician supply varied by region. The Greater Bay Area was the only region that met the recommended supply of primary care physicians (PCPs). The Inland Empire, San Joaquin Valley, and Northern and Sierra Counties all fell short of the recommended supply of specialists.

Further data and analysis on this topic is available from Healthforce Center at UCSF, the Association of American Medical Colleges, the California Office of the Patient Advocate, Cattaneo & Stroud’s Annual Medical Survey, the Integrated Healthcare Association, and the Medical Board of California.

The complete report and a quick reference guide, as well as all the charts in the report, are available for download below. These materials are part of CHCF’s California Health Care Almanac, an online clearinghouse for key data and analyses describing the state’s health care landscape. See our entire collection of current and past editions of California’s Health Care Workforce.