A recent School of Public Health study found a lack of diversity among providers within Medicare Advantage — the private sector of Medicare — leaving many Black and Hispanic patients without representative care.
The study found that, on average, 51.1% of white physicians in a given MA patient’s county were included in the patient’s insurance network — compared to just 43.2% and 44% of Black and Hispanic physicians, respectively.
Around one-fifth of Black and Hispanic beneficiaries had no Black or Hispanic physicians included in their MA network at all.
The study was led by David Meyers, the associate director of Brown’s Center for Advancing Health Policy Through Research, and Amal Trivedi, a professor of health services, policy and practice and of medicine.
To analyze MA networks, the researchers relied on 2019 data compiled by Ideon, a health data analytics company. The researchers then used the Association of American Medical Colleges’ self-reported physician demographic data from 2022 to evaluate the ethnicity of providers.
Using this data, the team compared the general availability of white, Black and Hispanic physicians within the MA networks and their actual availability to beneficiaries of the same racial identity.
Access to physicians of a similar racial identity allows patients to “have this shared lived experience, which creates a comfortable environment,” said Favour Akpokiere ’26, the vice president of the Black Pre-Med Society.
Previous research demonstrates that patients are more likely to trust physicians of similar cultural backgrounds.
Akpokiere noted that “the United States has historically had a lot of (cases) that would rightfully spark distrust in marginalized communities.” She cited the Tuskegee Syphilis study — in which researchers studied the effects of untreated syphilis in African-American males without receiving their informed consent or offering available treatments.
Research also shows that Black and Hispanic physicians are more likely to work in underserved communities.
In 2023, the Supreme Court banned race-based affirmative action in college admissions, which may affect the enrollment of Black and Hispanic students in medical schools.
Fewer doctors of color may discourage younger students from pursuing careers in medicine, said Pamil Tamelessio ’25, the chief of the Public Relations Committee of the BPMS. With a lack of representation, a career in medicine “seems like it’s not something that you can attain … just because you don’t see people that look like you in that field.”
“Without addressing these barriers, we risk stagnation or decline in future generations of Black and Hispanic doctors,” added Odinaka Anyanwu, an assistant professor of family medicine and assistant program director of the Global Health Fellowship at Brown. “This lack of representation will directly harm healthcare outcomes in these communities and worsen existing disparities.”
Evidence suggests that marginalized patients are more likely to access critical preventative services when they are seen by physicians of a similar race.
Meyers’s and Trivedi’s team didn’t find any evidence indicating that the disparities in concordant care are intentional. Instead, they believe them to be a result of pre-existing disproportions of the number of Black and Hispanic physicians in the U.S. and of Medicare Advantage’s unique limits on in-network providers.
“Only about 5% of all the physicians in the country are Black and only about 6% of the physicians are Hispanic,” Trivedi said.
BPMS Co-President Andrew Sojka ’25 found these discrepancies both “concerning for physicians who are trying to find work” and “detrimental to patient care,” he said.
“Now more than ever, we must push for increased diversity in the medical field,” said Mikhaila Doyle ’25, BPMS’s other co-president. “Lives depend on it.”
