Finding a gynecologist in Florida is turning into a part-time job for some women, with weeks of phone calls and dead-end insurance lists becoming part of the routine. Veronica Eller started her search the way most people do, pulling up the list of doctors covered by her insurance provider. What followed, she said, was days and weeks of wasted time on calls that led nowhere.
Eller said several of the doctors she called never answered the phone at all, forcing her to widen the mile radius covered by her insurer's physician listings just to find someone taking patients, according to a News 6 investigation by WKMG. Even after landing an appointment, she had spent days and weeks trying to find care. The investigation focused on women struggling to find an OB-GYN in Florida.
Eller's experience shows the frustration of searching through covered-doctor lists when several practices do not answer.
A Shortage With National Roots
Florida's squeeze is part of a bigger national pattern. A study published in the January 2026 issue of Obstetrics & Gynecology examined projected nationwide OB-GYN supply and demand between 2025 and 2035, finding that the national supply met just 93.4% of demand in 2025, with significant geographic disparities already baked in, according to the study published in Obstetrics & Gynecology. The same research projects that by 2035, all but six states will have an inadequate OB-GYN supply, with the shortfall hitting nonmetropolitan areas especially hard.
The study describes a widening mismatch: supply increasingly unable to keep up with rising demand in metropolitan areas, even as demand itself declines in nonmetropolitan regions where doctors are already scarce.
Rural Florida Hospitals Already Feeling It
The strain is especially visible outside Florida's metro cores. A 2023 report found that 91% of rural hospitals in Florida have no obstetric services, the highest percentage in the country, as reported by WUSF. Physician availability can swing wildly even within a single region: a report on Southwest Florida noted that Collier County's physician numbers exceed the state average, while in Glades County the total number of physicians can be counted on one hand, according to Gulfshore Business. That same report cited a 2023 Stanford Medicine survey finding that about 45% of doctors reported at least one symptom of burnout.
A New Residency Program Aims to Keep Doctors Local
One answer taking shape in Southwest Florida is a new residency program designed to train OB-GYNs and keep them in the region after graduation. Lee Health partnered with Florida State University's College of Medicine to launch the program at Cape Coral Hospital, which serves as its home base with FSU as the official institutional sponsor, the hospital system said in a blog post. The program launched July 1, 2026, welcoming six new residents into a four-year training track designed to enroll six residents annually going forward.
Lee Health has said OB-GYN shortages are growing across the country. WUSF described the effort as the first OB-GYN residency training program in Southwest Florida.
The Obstetrics & Gynecology study's own researchers recommended a broader set of fixes beyond new residency slots, including retaining existing physicians, expanding the roles qualified advanced-practice clinicians can play, and using technology to improve access. Residency expansion takes years to produce new specialists able to see patients.
What Patients Can Do in the Meantime
Women searching right now can start with an insurer's physician directory, ask a primary care doctor for a referral, or search local hospital systems directly. Patients can also ask insurers to identify in-network doctors who are actually accepting new patients, expand their search to neighboring communities and hospital systems, and ask practices directly about getting on a cancellation list.
Anyone with urgent symptoms is urged not to delay seeking medical attention while still searching for a routine appointment.
