RICHMOND, Va.
(AP) The job market is tightening.
So are opportunities.
The American Medical Association has issued a warning about a new round of job cuts and layoffs in medical jobs, including an influx of new hires into regional and urban clinics.
The AMA says more than 1,000 new medical jobs will disappear by the end of 2018, including 2,200 positions in rural hospitals.
That’s down from a peak of 6,700 medical jobs in 2019.
That’s a sharp decline from the 1,300 jobs that existed in the year before.
There are also cuts at the regional level in clinics across the country, the AMA says.
The biggest cuts are expected to occur in regional offices and clinics in rural areas where fewer doctors are available, such as in Georgia, Tennessee and North Carolina.
The hospital group plans to trim 4,000 jobs nationwide in the next two years, it says.
That will be the largest reduction in regional clinics since the 1980s.
The cuts could have dire consequences for some communities.
The AMA says hospitals have already cut more than 400,000 nurses and doctors since 2017.
More than half of the jobs lost in 2018 are in hospitals, and many of those jobs require nurses and other health care workers to stay at the hospital to keep patients alive.
The job cuts could make it more difficult for patients to get care and for hospitals to keep their beds full.
The new wave of job losses will hurt many patients and health care providers, including doctors and nurses.
Some of the hospitals are also trying to save money by reducing their use of medical equipment and reducing the number of staff members they use.
Many of the job cuts have already begun.
In the months leading up to the election, the hospital group announced it was going to cut 1,500 jobs in hospitals and outpatient clinics, as well as a similar number in nursing homes.
The hospitals were forced to close more than 30 facilities as a result.
Hospitals across the U.S. have reported some of the worst job cuts.
The changes have been welcomed by some.
The American Hospital Association says they are needed to keep the nation’s hospitals healthy.
But others worry that the cuts will push some hospitals to take a harder line with patients, which could have devastating effects.
A lot of hospitals have a lot of patient demand, and they’re trying to keep as much as they can,” said David T. Burdette, chief operating officer at the Mayo Clinic in Rochester, Minnesota.
He says there are fewer doctors and more nurses at hospitals.
Some of the closures were announced in the days after Donald Trump won the presidency.
His administration announced a massive cut to the NIH and other government agencies.
Some states have announced similar cuts.
There are now fewer than 300 public health hospitals in the United States.
But hospitals are already struggling.
In March, President Donald Trump signed a bill that cut federal funding for many public health programs, including for community health centers.
That included the Medicare hospital program, which provides care to patients at low income hospitals and for seniors and the disabled.
It also included Medicaid, which pays for nursing home care.
There were also other cuts announced that month, including $400 million for the opioid crisis, the elimination of a requirement that Medicare enrollees pay 10 percent of their income toward out-of-pocket medical expenses and a requirement for health insurance plans to cover prescription drugs.
Some health care experts say the changes could put some patients at risk.
Dr. Jonathan Eisenberg, an internal medicine doctor at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, said the cuts could put patients at higher risk for contracting a serious illness, or for getting sicker in the long term.
The cuts could also force hospitals to close clinics and cut staff.
For many of these people, the first priority is getting to the hospital.
They want to get to the ER and get treated, and this could be an important part of that,” he said.