Due to shortage of Primary Care Physicians, more people are using the emergency department for health services.

A recent study by the University of Colorado school of Medicine published in the Archives of Internal Medicine explains that insurance coverage alone will not eliminate the access of care.

The expanded health insurance coverage required by the recent passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act (ACA) is focused on increasing access to health insurance coverage, reducing healthcare cost and access to care for millions of Americans. But due to the shortage of available Primary Care Physicians (PCP) may continue to mean a rising number of emergency department visits.

"Massachusetts enacted legislation similar to the Affordable care Act in 2006, but data show despite nearly 98 percent health insurance coverage, emergency department visits remained high and one main reason was limited access to primary care," said Adit Ginde, MD, MPH, assistant professor of emergency medicine at CU school of Medicine and emergency department physician at University of Colorado Hospital (UCH) also the senior author of the study.

The study analyzed the National Health Interview Survey data of approximately 317,000 adults across the United States from 1999 to 2009.They found that people with one or more barriers to primary care are more likely to visit the emergency department and the barriers to primary care have doubled over the past decade.

Those barriers include: limited physician office hours, wait time for appointments, and difficulty in getting in touch with a Primary Care Physician.

The nation currently needs an additional 17,000 Primary Care Physicians in areas where 65 million Americans live, according to the United States department of Health and Human services (HHS).

The Association of American Medical Colleges estimates that shortage full time PCP will be around 46,000 and the overall shortage of doctors may grow to 124,400 by 2025.