General surgeons deliver surgical and procedural care for a wide range of health needs, including trauma, emergency conditions, cancer, and gastrointestinal disease. Hospitals, particularly in rural areas, that cannot maintain consistent surgical coverage face a higher risk of reducing services or closing their emergency departments.
According to the American College of Surgeons’ (ACS) analysis of data from the Association of American Medical Colleges, 21 states, including Arkansas, face general surgeon shortages. The ACS reports that the general surgery workforce has not kept pace with population growth and that shortages are most severe in rural regions, where limited surgical capacity affects timely access to care.
Our interactive dashboard examines the general surgeon workforce in Arkansas for the years 2019 through 2022. The dashboard provides visualizations at the state, county, and regional levels and includes information on physician demographics, activity status (full-time, part-time), and payer mix.
Key findings based on data for 2022, the most recent year available, include:
- There were 247 active general surgeons in Arkansas in 2022, or 0.8 per 10,000 residents.
- 15 counties had no active general surgeons.
- About 30% of general surgeons were active fewer than 150 days during the year. An “active day” is defined as a day in which the physician provided services to at least two patients or performed a qualifying surgical procedure.
- 27% of full-time general surgeons were 60 or older, raising concerns about future supply as many approached retirement.
- Early-career general surgeons (under age 45) were more likely to practice full-time during the year compared to general surgeons age 45 and up (77% vs 65%).
- The general surgeon workforce overall was 81% male and 19% female, but among physicians under age 45, about one-third were women.
- While Black and Hispanic Arkansans made up 15% and 9%, respectively, of the state’s population, they represented only 6% and 4%, respectively, of active general surgeons.
The dashboard is intended to inform policymakers, healthcare leaders, and other stakeholders about the supply, characteristics, and distribution of general surgeons so they can make evidence-based decisions regarding provider access across Arkansas communities.
About the Data
The data presented in this dashboard were obtained from the Arkansas Healthcare Transparency Initiative’s All-Payer Claims Database, licensure files from the Arkansas State Medical Board, and CarePrecise.
To be included in the dashboard, a physician must:
- Hold a valid Arkansas medical license and National Provider Identifier (NPI).
- Be assigned a specialty of general surgery.
- Have had at least one active day during the year, with an “active day” defined as a day in which the physician did at least one of the following:
- Provided evaluation and management services to at least two patients in Arkansas. Telemedicine services are included in this analysis and were used when calculating physician activity.
- Performed at least one qualifying surgical procedure in Arkansas.
- Have performed at least one qualifying surgical procedure during the year of analysis.
Qualifying surgical procedures include all current procedural terminology (CPT) codes 10004–69990, which the American Medical Association designates as surgical procedures.
Physician activity levels are based on the number of active days per year:
- Full time: 150 or more active days
- Part time: 50-149 active days
- Limited time: 11-49 active days
- Very limited time: 1-10 active days
Specialty assignments were based on information from physician licensure files. In cases where NPIs or license numbers were missing, CarePrecise were used to obtain the missing information. Manual review was performed as needed to resolve missing or inconsistent information.
Demographic details were primarily obtained from licensure files.
Payer mix visualizations reflect the distribution of each physician’s patients by primary payer type (e.g., Medicaid, Medicare, commercial insurance). Each bar represents an individual physician and shows the number of patients seen or visits provided during the calendar year. These views are only available at the county level and can be displayed by patient age group: children (ages 0-18), adults (age 19 and older), or all ages. Suppression rules are applied to prevent disclosure of small numbers. Counts fewer than 11 are suppressed and displayed as 3.
Geographic views on the dashboard are available at several levels:
- Statewide (all physicians meeting inclusion criteria).
- County of service location.
- Marketplace regions used by the Arkansas Insurance Department.
- University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences regional campuses and training sites.
- Rurality, based on the 2023 Rural-Urban Continuum Codes (RUCC), which distinguish counties by population size and proximity to metropolitan areas. Urban counties were defined by RUCC codes 1-3. Rural counties were defined by RUCC codes 4-9.
Counts of active physicians and activity classifications may differ between state and county views because activity is calculated separately at each level. For example, a physician may be full time at the state level but part time in a specific county, depending on where the physician’s active days occurred. This update applies geospatial analysis to verify location when detailed address information is available. A small number of physicians could not be assigned to a specific county.