The Massachusetts Senate is proposing a $10 million plan that its leaders hope will help keep locally educated primary care physicians in the state, and eventually, make it easier for people to see a doctor.
A spending bill set for debate next Thursday would a $10 million pilot scholarship program for students at the UMass Chan Medical School in Worcester.
The scholarship, Senate President Karen Spilka said, would provide free tuition for students who complete their medical degree at UMass and commit to practicing family medicine for at least five years in Massachusetts, specifically at community health center or a hospital system serving low-income patients.
“When people need a doctor’s appointment [or] need to find a primary care doctor, it’s almost impossible for them to find somebody that is still taking patients, that is within their catchment area, close enough for them to go to as a primary care doctor,” Senate President Spilka told GBH News. “And the need is dire in Massachusetts, like every other state in the country.”
Dr. Diane McKee, chair of the family medicine and community health department at UMass Chan, said that if the scholarship program becomes law, it would “allow us to send a very powerful message to students that we’re trying to create the conditions that would allow them to practice primary care.”
McKee said primary care is on the “low end of physician pay scales,” and many medical students opt for other disciplines in part to more quickly pay down the “very, very substantial” debt from their education.
UMass Chan says its total cost to attend its four-year program is $83,247 a year for Massachusetts residents, and $113,673 for non-residents. Tuition alone is $42,284 for residents and $72,710 for non-residents. The Senate’s bill would not limit the the scholarship program to only in-state students, but it would allow UMass to “prioritize” Massachusetts residents and to develop additional eligibility guidelines.
“We have a real problem in Massachusetts and in the nation with regard to the availability of primary care doctors,” McKee said. “And in particular, we know we have a real shortage in Massachusetts. What is happening is that we have the aging population, which is increasing the need for primary care, while at the same time, we are seeing a significant retirement of the primary care workforce. People are retiring, essentially, faster than we are replacing them.”
Eight students from this year’s graduating class at the UMass medical school, about 5%, are going on to family medicine programs, which McKee said is a little less than the national average “and way fewer than we need.”
Primary care providers also report high levels of burnout and administrative burdens, which contributes to workforce challenges and make it hard to meet patient demand for care, according to the state’s Health Policy Commission. In 2021, only one out of seven new physicians in Massachusetts entered primary care, the HPC reported.
The Senate’s pilot proposal comes amid broader state efforts to make primary care more accessible.
Gov. Maura Healey, in her 2025 State of the Commonwealth speech, said she was directing her administration to shift resources toward primary care, with the goal of building “a whole army of primary care providers.” A state task force is also working to produce recommendations, including workforce development plans, to stabilize primary care in Massachusetts, and the panel’s reports could become the basis for legislation.
Spilka said the Senate’s point person on health care, Arlington Democrat Sen. Cindy Friedman, has been working on a primary care bill that should be ready “shortly.”
“But we wanted to take action sooner rather than later,” Spilka said.
Senate Ways and Means Chairman Michael Rodrigues estimated the initial $10 million, which would come from millionaire’s tax revenue that the state has already collected but not spent, would “provide support for five years of family medicine students at UMass.”
Rodrigues, a Westport Democrat who graduated from what’s now UMass Dartmouth, said the free tuition could also function as a recruitment tool, drawing family medicine students to Massachusetts from across the country.
“And the more people doing it, the easier access it will be for our residents to find practitioners,” he said.
The Massachusetts House in March passed legislation that would spend $1.3 billion in surplus millionaire’s tax money on various education and transportation programs.
Because the family medicine scholarship is not in the House’s version of the bill, its future hinges on closed-door negotiations between the two chambers that will take place after the Senate’s vote.
