“In 2023, Dominguez told the Nueces County Commissioners Court that the community needed 162 primary care providers but only had about 60. Dominguez described months-long wait times at clinics.”
Meanwhile ERs are raking in millions off a broken system that has a capacity problem.
Olivia Garrett – Corpus Christi Caller Times – April 17, 2025
- Corpus Christi residents face long wait times for specialized medical care, often traveling to San Antonio or Houston for treatment.
- The physician shortage affects primary care and specialties, mirroring a national trend but exacerbated by local factors.
Editor’s note: This is the first in a two-part series about a shortage of doctors in the Corpus Christi area and potential solutions to recruit and retain them. Read part two here.
After routine blood tests showed concerning signs, Barbara Thomas’ primary care provider recommended she see a gastroenterologist.
But when she called a Corpus Christi gastroenterologist’s office for an appointment, the doctor was all booked. The wait time for an appointment was six months.
“I couldn’t wait for that,” Thomas said.
That’s when the receptionist shared a suggestion that many Corpus Christi residents have heard. Try San Antonio, the lady on the phone said.
Thomas called a liver specialist in San Antonio. After sending over her medical records, Thomas was able to see a doctor within days.
But because her specialist is in San Antonio, Thomas had to commute every three months for a year and continues to make the trip every six months.
When seeking specialized medical care, many Corpus Christi residents find themselves having to travel outside of the Coastal Bend.
That was even the case for Dr. Mary Dale Peterson, the executive vice president and chief operating officer of Driscoll Health System, which operates the nonprofit Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi and serves children across South Texas.
Peterson has had to go to Houston or San Antonio herself for specialized care.
“We are at a crisis point for many specialties, with waitlists in gastroenterology and many specialties at six months or more,” Peterson said of the situation in Corpus Christi, particularly for adult health care. “That can be life-threatening. If you get behind in your screenings and you’re not catching cancers early enough, it is a problem.”
The Nueces County Hospital District recently completed a study of physician needs, predicting the county will need 50 more family practice physicians, 55 more internal medicine physicians and an additional 15 obstetrics and gynecology physicians by 2030 based on the current supply of doctors. The study also found deficits in dermatology, neurology and psychiatry.
Local medical professionals and patients agree: There aren’t enough doctors in Corpus Christi.
Does Corpus Christi need more doctors?
The doctor shortage problem is bigger than Corpus Christi or even the region or state. Even in Houston, Peterson said she faced months of waiting for a specialized eye appointment.
Across the U.S., more than 76.2 million people live in a designated “primary care health professional shortage area,” according to U.S. Department of Health and Human Services data displayed by nonprofit KFF.
“There’s never enough physicians in any community across the United States,” Christus Spohn Health System President and CEO Dominic Dominguez said.
And, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges, Hispanic populations and other minorities are underserved. If all Americans had the same access to and usage of health care as non-Hispanic white suburban metropolitan residents, the group with the highest health care usage in the U.S., the country would need more than 200,000 more doctors based on 2021 data.
The Texas Department of State Health Services groups Corpus Christi into the Rio Grande Valley public health region. It predicts that this region will be short 1,330 primary care physicians, 454 specialists and 118 surgeons by 2036.
“There are significant shortages that are anticipated over the next few years that we’re working very diligently to try to address,” said Todd Senters, HCA Gulf Coast vice president of graduate medical education and designated institutional official.
HCA Healthcare operates Corpus Christi Medical Center.
Speaking about pediatric needs specifically, Peterson said the children’s health workforce does not face the same level of challenges as the adult system. In the pediatric arena, Corpus Christi is doing better than other parts of South Texas.
The hospital also has doctors who commute from Corpus Christi to communities around the region, sometimes flying doctors and nurses out of Corpus Christi in small planes to reach patients.
But that doesn’t mean there aren’t needs here. Peterson said Corpus Christi is short 16 to 20 obstetricians, who specialize in pregnancy and childbirth.
“Women need to get in timely for their prenatal visits, and it’s a challenge,” Peterson said. “Any obstetrician will tell you how big a challenge it is to this community.”
South Texas as a region needs 200 more pediatric specialists, Peterson said, including in areas like pediatric neurology, pediatric developmental medicine, psychiatry, psychology and pulmonology.
Primary care and specialty needs
Primary care physicians help patients keep track of their health. They perform annual checkups and diagnose and treat illnesses and injuries.
Christus Spohn Health System is the largest provider of primary care in the Coastal Bend, Dominguez said. Last year, the health system recruited 11 primary care providers.
The Christus Trinity Clinic in Corpus Christi has 58 primary care providers, Dominguez said. Christus Spohn has been expanding in clinics across the Coastal Bend, including adding providers to clinics on North Padre Island and in Portland.
Dominguez said that all of Christus Spohn’s primary care clinics are accepting new patients. The health system has walk-in clinics, offers virtual visits and has two Corpus Christi urgent care clinics, he said.
In 2023, Dominguez told the Nueces County Commissioners Court that the community needed 162 primary care providers but only had about 60. Dominguez described months-long wait times at clinics. Those numbers are several years old.
Since then, Christus Spohn has made headway in addressing primary care needs, Dominguez said. Updated figures are expected later this year, he said, through a community needs assessment report.
But there are not enough specialty doctors, Dominguez said.
Christus Spohn’s network does include specialists, including surgeons, oncologists and neurologists. The system is “aggressively” recruiting doctors in areas like cardiology, gastroenterology, surgery, colorectal surgery and vascular surgery.
Dominguez said that for certain complex situations such as transplants or specific liver diseases, it is standard to send patients outside of Corpus Christi to more populated areas with advanced specialists for care.
At Driscoll Children’s Hospital in Corpus Christi, the average wait time for routine specialty appointments is about 35 days, Peterson said, with urgent cases seen more quickly. Peterson would like to reduce the average wait time to 21 days.
But pediatric wait times are longer in certain areas. Peterson said that the waitlist for specialties like psychology can be six months.
“There’s a huge need for autism testing,” Peterson said.
More than 100 Corpus Christi doctors participated in a Nueces County Medical Society survey in 2023. According to the report, shared in 2024, respondents indicated that the average wait time for new patients at their practice ranged from weeks to months. Around 10% were full and not accepting new patients.
“A lot of folks can’t find a family doctor,” Nueces County Medical Society President Dr. Karl Serrao said.
Without enough specialists, patients have to leave the community for care, Serrao said.
“That becomes quite disruptive,” Serrao said. “They have to drive long distances. (Transferring patients) does not help with the continuity of care.”
The impacts of a doctor shortage are significant, Senters said. Without easy access to a primary care physician, patients can’t effectively manage chronic health conditions, such as Type 2 diabetes, congestive heart failure and high blood pressure.
Patients come to the hospital sicker than if they were able to be treated by a primary care physician, Senters said.
Why is there a shortage?
Dominguez pointed to the number of retirements as one reason the area needs more doctors.
Not only are doctors retiring, but also, the patient population is aging, Senters said.
A high percentage of the population in Corpus Christi is uninsured or relies on government health insurance programs like Medicare or Medicaid, Peterson said.
According to U.S. census data, 1 in 5 people in Corpus Christi under the age of 65 does not have health insurance, a slightly higher percentage than the state average and more than double the rate for the United States as a whole.
Another 21.5% of Nueces County is covered by Medicaid, according to 2023 data from Georgetown University.
According to the Texas Hospital Association, Medicare and Medicaid do not reimburse hospitals for the full cost of medical care.
This can create financial challenges, particularly for private practices, which can’t offer higher salaries to compete with other areas of the country, Peterson said.
“That’s a lot of our root cause with (challenges) recruiting doctors here,” Peterson said, speaking about the South Texas region. “In a way, the health systems are having to subsidize that.”
Private physician practices are being bought out by private equity firms and corporate entities, Peterson said. Others are joining larger hospital systems, which face the same challenges with government underpayment, she said.
Potential solutions?
The Nueces County Hospital District is seeking support from the Texas Legislature for a grant program to recruit and retain more doctors.
Local hospital systems are focused on hiring more doctors and investing in graduate medical education.
And some are wondering what it would take to establish a new medical school in Corpus Christi.
The Caller-Times is delving into potential strategies to recruit and retain more doctors in a follow-up article.
Average wait times for common medical encounters is 30 days and even longer for specialty care. Then you have to consider the time one spends sitting in a waiting room full of coughing, sneezing patients followed by more wait time sitting in a claustrophobic, 211 square foot examining room.
As a result, patients go the emergency room for care at enormous cost to plan sponsors. Simple toothache? Yep, the ER will take care of you right away for $7,000 (true example).
First Primary Care sees a market opportunity in Corpus Christi and is willing to risk the investment. Frontier Direct Care sees opportunity too. Will there be more? Meanwhile ERs are raking in millions off a broken system that has a capacity problem.
