WEDNESDAY, Nov. 5, 2025 (HealthDay News) — Even a relatively short drive to see a family doctor can hamper a person’s access to health care, a new study says.

A family physician located as little as 19 miles away is associated with fewer office visits, less cancer screening and a higher likelihood of getting basic health care at an emergency room, researchers reported Nov. 3 in the Canadian Medical Association Journal.

“Our research shows that people use the emergency room not just because they don’t have a family doctor or can’t get an appointment,” lead researcher Dr. Archna Gupta, a family physician at St. Michael’s Hospital in Toronto, Canada, said in a news release. “It’s also because their family doctor might be too far away to reach easily.”

For the study, researchers analyzed records for nearly 10 million patients in Ontario who had a family physician. About 13% of patients lived more than 30 kilometers (18.6 miles) from their doctor.

Those patients were 43% more likely to visit an ER for non-urgent reasons, and 28% more likely to have had no check-ups with any family physician in the previous two years, the study found.

It showed they also were 17% less likely to have gotten screened for colon or cervical cancer and 24% less likely for breast cancer.

“The distance makes it harder for many Ontarians to get the care they need when they need it most,” Gupta said.

Researchers also found that these odds increase the farther people live from their doctor, with those living more than 150 kilometers (93 miles) away having the worst access to health care.

“Distance to health care services is an important determinant of health and can be classified as a factor of health care utilization, with increased distance a potential barrier to receiving care,” Gupta said.

Although this study took place in Canada, researchers noted that similar trends have been observed in other countries like the Netherlands and Norway.

Rural Americans might also be forced to drive longer distances to get to a doctor, based on recent political moves.

Medicaid cuts included in the One Big Beautiful Bill are expected to cause some rural hospitals to close, potentially diminishing access to doctors, according to KFF Health News.

Immigration policy also is expected to impact rural residents’ access to health care. 

Rural areas have nearly twice the percentage of medical professionals working under H-1B visas as urban counties, researchers reported Oct. 29 in the Journal of the American Medical Association.

A recent hike in the fee for an H-1B visa to $100,000 from an average $3,500 is expected to cause a doctor drain in rural counties, if either the docs or their health systems can’t afford the cost of a visa, researchers said.

More information

The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has more on rural access to health care.

SOURCES: Canadian Medical Association, news release, Nov. 3, 2025; Canadian Medical Association Journal, Nov. 3, 2025