If you've had a hard time finding a primary care doctor in recent years, you're not alone.

There's a nationwide shortage of general practitioners and a new report from New Jersey's Health Care Quality Institute finds the problem is even worse in our state.

There are a number of factors at play, but it comes down to one familiar issue the money.

Senior correspondent Joanna Gagis reports.

If we keep going down the path, we're going, we're not going to have any primary care clinicians left in the State of New Jersey.

Health care experts are sounding the alarm on the primary care physician shortage, they say, has reached a crisis point in New Jersey.

Some forced into early retirement because of COVID.

But far more new clinicians are opting for specialty practices that pay much better.

Primary care physicians really practice what's called continuous care.

New Jersey Health Care Quality Institute's Linda Schwimmer explains.

It's a way of treating patients that builds long, trusting relationships over time.

But primary care doesn't get reimbursed in the same way that specialists do.

It has been very much fee for service code based.

So when you can do a procedure, when you can intervene in some way, that's a billable event.

Also, the complexity of those events or interventions, those are reimbursed at higher rates.

And yet primary care has proven to be one of the most critical pieces in health care, says family medicine doctor Alfred Talia.

That has been demonstrated to reduce mortality, to improve outcomes for people with chronic illnesses, eliminate disparities and actually reduce costs.

All in one has been undervalued in this state.

We're now at the 48th out of the 50 states in primary care reimbursement here in New Jersey.

That's that's outrageous.

And that's driven a lot of providers out of the state.

The Health Care Quality Institute just released a report outlining several steps New Jersey can take to achieve success that states like Rhode Island, Massachusetts and Oregon have that reimburse both fee for service along with per member per month reimbursements known as capitated fees.

What we want is for all of the health plans across the state to really commit to how are they going to get involved and support these hybrid models of payment.

For instance, CMS Center for Medicaid and Medicare Services is has had a model called Primary Care first for a while now.

Very few of the health plans in New Jersey participated in that model.

The state Health Benefit program has been a great supporter of primary care.

We would like to know how is that gone?

They should be reporting.

Data without these changes.

Primary care practitioners like Dr. Nicole Henry Dendial all say their business models will soon implode because the workload required just to keep a primary practice open is unsustainable.

If you squeeze the doctors and particularly primary care to the point where we can't keep our practices open or we have no choice but to work for bigger entities, you're losing access and you're losing it in in all different areas, using it in small communities, in the underserved areas.

You're not really encouraging the recruitment of physicians that look like the patients that we need to treat.

Yvonne Yee is in her third year of residency and is facing the decision now of whether to practice in New Jersey.

Without these changes, she says, the current situation.

Will affect our ability to practice medicine well and be able to care for patients well and to keep talent within the state because they feel that they are not being compensated fairly and they can seek better opportunities elsewhere, then that's going to overall have a very widespread affect towards our health as a state.

And says the report with an aging population, the situation will only worsen without significant and speedy changes.

I'm Joanna Gagis, NJ Spotlight News.