Northern Virginia’s housing market will likely remain a sellers’ market for the rest of 2023, according to a Northern Virginia Association of Realtors market forecast released June 6.
NVAR and George Mason University’s Center for Regional Analysis predict a continuing housing inventory shortage and pent-up demand from buyers amid positive economic conditions but mounting risks.
“Higher interest rates are impacting both buyers and sellers, causing housing inventories to be even tighter than during the pandemic, but with slightly softer demand pressures,” NVAR CEO Ryan McLaughlin said in a statement.
Mortgage rates have receded from recent highs but remain higher than pre-pandemic rates. For the week ending June 8, the average 30-year fixed-rate mortgage rate was 6.71%, the first decline after a three-week climb, according to Freddie Mac data. While pricing remains strong, low housing inventory has decreased the number of units sold by about 20% from pre-pandemic norms.
GMU’s Center for Regional Analysis and industry experts predict that demand in Northern Virginia will remain soft compared with the last two years because some households are priced out of the market by higher mortgage rates. However, there is pent-up housing demand, and buyers seem to be accepting higher mortgage rates, especially since monthly rent rates are also increasing.
The forecast expects existing housing inventory shortages to increase, as current homeowners are less likely to move if they locked in lower mortgage rates. On average, the report predicts unit sales will decline from about 10% to 15%, compared with 2022.
“It will be hard to justify leaving a home with a refinanced loan below 3% for another home with a higher price and a loan rate that could be doubled,” said Terry Clower, director of GMU-CRA and the Northern Virginia chair of GMU’s Schar School of Policy and Government, in a statement.
Prices remain relatively stable, and NVAR and GMU-CRA expect prices to increase about 1% to 2% because of factors with conflicting effects: affordability and lessening demand versus low inventory and a resilient labor market.
The report includes expectations for three submarkets: Fairfax and Arlington counties and the City of Alexandria.
In Fairfax County, the largest locality in NVAR’s region, single-family home prices are predicted to have an average 0.7% price gain, while total unit sales will drop 10% for the year and inventories will drop 13%.
Fairfax County townhouses will lose 22% of inventory, and total unit sales will drop 15% annually. Median prices are expected to increase by 0.4%. The condo market will likely see a 23% decrease in sales and an average 4.3% rise in prices.
The average prices for single-family homes in Arlington are expected to increase 9.2%, with sales decreasing by 4% and inventories continuing to drop — the average number of units for sale will decrease by 7%.
Arlington townhome prices will remain flat because of dropping inventory, and the condo market will also have low inventory as condo owners stay put due to mortgage rates and a lack of available alternative housing options.
In Alexandria, home prices will increase about 1.6% as prices become less volatile, according to the report. Alexandria is expected to have a better sales trend than other markets in the region, with an increase in 5.4%, or 19 homes. Single-family housing supply in Alexandria will continue to decline but remain above late 2021 levels.
The Alexandria townhome market will likely see flat inventory levels, and unit sales will drop about 15% to about 619 units. Prices will rise about 3%, according to the forecast. Condo sales are expected to decline by about 17%. The annual average condo price will increase about 8%.
NVAR reports home sales activity for Fairfax and Arlington counties, the cities of Alexandria, Fairfax and Falls Church, and the towns of Vienna, Herndon and Clifton.
Truist Foundation announced it has made a $500,000 grant that will ultimately help Richmond’s Office of Community Wealth Building provide further financial, education and employment coaching to city families,the philanthropic arm of Truist Financial Corp. announced in a press conference Friday.
“At Truist, our purpose is to inspire and build better lives and communities, and that is critical to everything we do,” Truist Chairman and CEO William H. “Bill” Rogers Jr. said “It guides all of our decision making.”
Truist’s grant will fund Washington, D.C.-based nonprofit Lift Inc. to provide two years of training to case managers from the Richmond Office of Community Wealth Building on Lift’s one-on-one financial, education and employment coaching program to implement in its services to parents. Lift began the instructional partnership with Richmond in April.
“I think it’s actually building on what they’re already doing, which is why I’m so excited to partner with OCWB,” Lift CEO Michelle Rhone-Collins said. “There was already this happening within the office but they didn’t have the capacity to do it at a grander scale, so we’re able to turbocharge the effort. The environment was already right for us.”
The Office of Community Wealth Building currently serves around 150 families through its various programs and plans to scale its services to serve 300 families this year.
“We have a real common purpose, particularly in this sector,” Rogers said. “[Truist and OCWB] really work to create just and equitable communities, which is critical to the success of great cities, and serving those who have historically been underserved.”
Lift, which provides financial, education and employment coaching to parents in marginalized communities, currently operates in Chicago, Los Angeles, New York and Washington, D.C., and Richmond. In 2022, the organization reached more than 900 families in those cities through its partners, for which it provides technical assistance.
“We are so pleased to see the funds to support the expansion of [Lift’s] work as they link arms with the Richmond Office of Community Wealth [Building], to catalyze change, breaking down barriers and building new pathways to opportunities along the way,” said Truist Foundation President Lynette Bell. “This is where change starts.”
Based in Charlotte, North Carolina, Truist formed from the 2019 merger of BB&T and SunTrust Bank. The bank had assets of $555 billion as of Dec. 31, 2022. The Truist Foundation was established in 2020.
Wendy P. Lewis, a partner in KPMG LLP’s audit practice, will become chair of the Virginia Board of Accountancy on July 1.
Lewis is currently the board’s vice chair; her term as chair will end on June 30, 2024.
“I’m honored to step into the role of chair. … As the first Black woman to serve as chair since VBOA became an independent agency in 2001, I am excited about the important work of opening doors to the CPA profession for people from a variety of backgrounds, as well as leading the board through the overall transformation and evolution of the accounting profession,” Lewis said in a statement.
She is a member of the Virginia Society of CPAs and the American Institute of Certified Public Accountants and a past local chapter president of the National Association of Black Accountants, now NABA Inc.
“I look forward to working with Wendy in her role as chair of the Virginia Board of Accountancy,” VSCPA President and CEO Stephanie Peters said in a statement. “Wendy has been an active member and volunteer with the VSCPA, particularly in our student and DEI initiatives, and I know she has leadership qualities that will serve her and the CPA profession well. She is passionate about inspiring the next generation of CPAs and I know she will keep that at the forefront during her time as chair.”
Lewis has been with KPMG since 1997, when she started as an associate. She completed a three-year rotation in KPMG’s national office in New York, providing technical accounting, financial reporting and risk management assistance to the firm’s local offices.
Lewis has been a member of KPMG’s African Ancestry Business Resource Group since its inception in 2006 and serves as partner champion for the local board in Richmond, a role she also has held for KPMG’s Washington, D.C., and Tysons offices.
Lewis leads KPMG’s recruiting efforts for Hampton University, Virginia State University and Virginia Union University, from which she has a bachelor’s degree in accounting. She serves on the boards of the Howard University Middle School of Mathematics and Science and the Richmond Public Schools Education Foundation.
Established in 1910, the VBOA regulates certified public accountants in the state, handling exams, licensing, consumer protection enforcement, professional education audits and peer review oversight.
A portfolio of three warehouses in Hampton Roads sold for $8.4 million in mid-May.
Tidewater Fleet Supply, an independent distributor of fleet, truck, trailer and heavy equipment parts, leases the properties.
Located at 3666 Progress Road, the Norfolk warehouse sold for $6.03 million, according to city property records. The parcel is approximately 4.82 acres. At 1324 Lindale Drive in Chesapeake, the approximately 1.6-acre property sold for almost $1.8 million, property records show. The warehouse in Hampton on 2502 58th St. is on roughly 0.51 acres.
B&D Acquisitions LLC bought the properties from Parrott Properties LLC. Ricky Anderson and Chamie Burroughs with Colliers International represented the buyer.
Deborah G. “Deb” Gandy, senior managing director at Chevy Chase Trust Investment Advisors, was inducted as 2023-2024 chair of the Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce on Tuesday.
Gandy, the first Black woman to chair the chamber, previously served as the chamber’s 2022-2023 vice chair and succeeds Matt McQueen, Peraton Inc.’s chief communications and engagement officer, as the chamber’s chair.
“The chamber board and executive committee are [composed] of as dynamic a group of business leaders as you’ll find in any major market in this country,” Gandy said in a statement. “With their participation, I am confident in the chamber’s ability to excel. … The chamber’s regional impact will be more significant this time next year than it is today.”
A wealth adviser and relationship manager for Chevy Chase Trust, which has offices in McLean and Bethesda, Maryland, Gandy advises clients in investment management, financial and estate planning and trust administration and oversees the delivery of services to clients.
Gandy was previously director and private banker at Citi Private Bank. Before that, she was a senior vice president and relationship manager at U.S. Trust Co., now Bank of America Private Bank. Gandy also held roles with Wachovia Bank and Trust Co. and the Royal Bank of Scotland in New York City.
Gandy is a past board chair for Lead Virginia and a 2012 graduate of the statewide leadership program. She serves on the board of directors for Signature Theatre in Arlington, the board of trustees for the Arlington Community Foundation and the Dean’s Advisory Board for George Mason University’s Honors College.
She holds a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill.
The Northern Virginia Chamber also appointed other new board officers at its annual members’ meeting on Tuesday:
Vice chairman: Mark Carrier, president, B. F. Saul Company Hospitality Group
Secretary: Richard Pineda, president and CEO, Calibre Systems Inc.
Treasurer: Jeff Rubery, market executive, EagleBank
Founded in 1925 as a Fairfax County-focused organization, the Tysons-based Northern Virginia Chamber of Commerce represents more than 650 businesses that employ about 500,000 employees across the Greater Washington area.
Andy Spicknall became the inaugural president of Bon Secours Harbour View Hospital in Suffolk on Monday.
Spicknall, who most recently served as vice president of operations at Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center in Portsmouth, reports directly to Pat Davis-Hagens, the health system’s Hampton Roads market president.
“During his nearly 10 years with Bon Secours, Andy has been proven to be a dedicated servant leader to our patients in the Hampton Roads region,” Davis-Hagens said in a statement. “I’m excited that he will bring his experience to expand on his great work through this much-deserved appointment as the very first president for Bon Secours Harbour View Hospital.”
Spicknall will be responsible for the operational success of Harbour View, including the existing Bon Secours Health Center at Harbour View and the upcoming Harbour View Hospital, scheduled to open in 2025. Bon Secours broke ground on the $80 million hospital in October 2022. It will be 98,000 square feet, with 18 medical/surgical beds and up to four operating rooms.
He joined Bon Secours Hampton Roads nine years ago as an administrative resident at Bon Secours Maryview Medical Center. From 2015 to 2017, Spicknall served as chief of staff, and from 2017 to May 2020, he served as administrative director of operations and ambulatory services for Maryview, DePaul Medical Center and Health Center at Harbour View, before assuming his most recent role at Maryview.
He holds a bachelor’s degree in business from Virginia Tech and a master’s degree in health administration from Virginia Commonwealth University. Spicknall serves on the Harbour View Commerce Association board.
Virginians wagered $425.98 million in April, up 6.6% from the year prior, according to data released June 1 by the Virginia Lottery.
About $422 million in sports betting revenue came from mobile operators, and the remaining $3.5 million came from casino retail activity out of the temporary Hard Rock Hotel & Casino Bristol and the state’s first permanent casino, Rivers Casino Portsmouth. Virginia casino total gaming revenues totaled $35.4 million in April, according to the Virginia Lottery. Virginia’s third casino, the temporary Caesars Virginia resort in Danville, opened May 15.
April’s sports betting revenues decreased almost 16.7% from the $511.6 million reported in March. Virginia sports bettors won $380.86 million in April, down from $456 million in March.
A summer slump in sports betting is normal, according to Dru James, an analyst with Virginia Lottery-approved sports betting vendor BetVirginia.com.
“The industry-dreaded summer of discontent will likely contain persistent short-term drops through the summer and into September, where they should pick back up as professional sports return to the calendar,” James said in a statement. “In the meantime, year-over-year figures will be a much stronger indicator of market health in the state of Virginia and beyond.”
The 16 licensed operators included in April’s reporting were:
Betfair Interactive US LLC (FanDuel) in partnership with the Washington Commanders,
Virginia places a 15% tax on sports betting activity based on each permit holder’s adjusted gross revenue. With 10 operators reporting net positive adjusted gross revenue for April, the monthly taxes totaled $5.8 million, 97.5% of which will be deposited in the state’s general fund. The remainder, nearly $145,000, will go to the Problem Gambling Treatment and Support Fund, which the Virginia Department of Behavioral Health and Developmental Services administers.
Thirty-six Virginia-based companies made Fortune magazine’s 69th annual Fortune 1000 list, notably including newcomers to the commonwealth Raytheon Technologies Corp. and Boeing Co. as Virginia’s second and third highest-ranking companies. Freddie Mac remained Virginia’s top-ranked company, at No. 45, and 24 Virginia companies made this year’s elite Fortune 500 list.
Released Monday, the Fortune 1000 list ranks the 1,000 largest United States corporations by total revenue, including public companies and private companies for which revenue information is available.
Aerospace and defense companies Raytheon and Boeing both moved their headquarters to Arlington County from out of state last year. In 2022, Raytheon Technologies, then based in Massachusetts, was 58th on the list. Last year, Boeing, based in Chicago at the time, ranked No. 60.
Notably, Goochland County-based used vehicle retailer CarMax Inc. jumped 50 slots on the 2023 Fortune 500 list, rising from No. 174 last year to No. 124 this year. CarMax raked in $660.8 billion in fiscal year 2023 revenue, down 5.5% from the $699.5 billion it brought in in FY22. As of Feb. 28, the retailer had a total of 240 used car stores. During the fourth quarter of fiscal 2023, the company opened five retail locations in Chicago; Asheville, North Carolina; Indianapolis; College Station, Texas; and Amarillo, Texas.
Henrico County-based convenience retail holding company Arko Corp., which debuted on the Fortune 500 last year at No. 498, moved up almost 40 slots to No. 460. Arko is the parent company of Richmond-based GPM Investments LLC. One of the nation’s largest convenience store chains, GPM’s brands include Fas Mart and E-Z Mart. Arko reported $9.14 billion in 2022, up from almost $7.42 billion in 2021. In 2022, Arko completed two acquisitions, marking 22 acquisitions since 2013, and announced two pending acquisitions: Transit Energy Group LLC, which closed in March, and Quarles Petroleum Inc., which closed in July 2022.
The biggest slides on this year’s Fortune 500 list were seen from Henrico County-based insurance holding company Markel Group Inc., which dropped 63 slots to No. 352, and DXC Technology Co. in Ashburn, which dropped 48 slots, from No. 207 to No. 255. Markel changed its name from Markel Corp. on May 26. In 2022, Markel reported $49.79 billion in total assets, up from almost $48.48 billion in 2021. DXC Technology reported $14.43 billion in FY23, down from $16.26 billion in fiscal year 2022.
New to the Fortune 1000 list this year, coming in at No. 907, is McLean-based government contractor V2X Inc., which formed from the 2022 merger of Colorado-based government contractor Vectrus Inc. and Mississippi-based The Vertex Co.
Tysons-based real estate investment trust Park Hotels & Resorts Inc. reappeared on the list this year at No. 997, but Lynchburg-based nuclear components and fuel supplier BWX Technologies Inc., which was ranked No. 995 in 2022, was knocked off the 2023 list.
Last year, 34 Virginia companies made on the Fortune 1000 list, with 21 in the Fortune 500.
This year, 10 of Virginia’s Fortune 500 companies are based in Fairfax County, which makes it the Virginia locality with the most Fortune 500 companies. The metro Richmond area, including Hanover, Henrico and Goochland counties, has the second most, with five companies.
These are the Virginia-based companies that made the 2023 Fortune 1000 list, in order of ranking:
45) Federal Home Loan Mortgage Corp. (“Freddie Mac”), McLean
479) Science Applications International Corp. (SAIC), Reston
486) Genworth Financial, Henrico County
564) CACI International Inc., Reston
679) Maximus Inc., Reston
688) ASGN Inc., Glen Allen
693) Brink’s Co., Henrico County
723) Parsons Corp., Centreville
755) Graham Holdings Co., Arlington County
856) Tegna Inc., McLean
901) Gannett Co. Inc., McLean
907) V2X Inc., McLean
932) NewMarket Corp., Richmond
968) AvalonBay Communities Inc., Arlington County
987) Park Hotels & Resorts Inc., Tysons
Editor’s note: This article has been updated to reflect General Dynamics Corp.’s and Northrop Grumman Corp.’s current addresses and the total number of Fortune 500 companies in Fairfax County.
When Staunton native Emma Harrison decided to pursue medicine, her grandfather asked his primary care doctor of several years, Dr. Katie Dunbar, to talk to Harrison about her profession.
Harrison, then an undergraduate student at the University of Virginia, met with Dunbar, a physician at Carilion Clinic Family Medicine – Waynesboro, to discuss family medicine.
“[Dunbar] was brought to tears talking about how much she loves her patients and how she has seen the same patients for decades and [has been] building up those relationships. … And being there through generations, I think, is so special [to] family medicine, and hearing Dr. Dunbar talk about that was really what moved me to go into primary care,” recalls Harrison.
Harrison entered the University of Virginia School of Medicine in fall 2021 and is a member of its Generalist Scholars Program, a four-year mentoring, scholarship and community service program for students pursuing primary care. It accepts six incoming students a year.
Harrison says she wants to practice in a rural area once she graduates, largely because she has seen the need for health care professionals in her Shenandoah Valley community.
Although rural areas have more severe primary care provider shortages, the problem is widespread. And Harrison is part of a shrinking pool of U.S. medical students choosing primary care over other specialties. In 2019, the National Resident Matching Program had a record number of internal medicine positions — 8,116 — with a fill rate of 97.2%, but only 41.5% of the positions were filled by U.S. senior medical students, the lowest percentage on record. Family medicine and pediatrics also offered record numbers of positions and had the lowest fill rates by U.S. seniors on record.
The United States, including Virginia, faces a shortage of primary care professionals that will only worsen as baby boomers age, but governments, medical schools and employers are taking corrective steps to encourage emerging doctors to choose a related specialty.
The Association of American Medical Colleges projects the U.S. will have a shortage of between 17,800 and 48,000 primary care physicians by 2034, according to a June 2021 report.
Dr. Sterling Ransone, board chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians, is a physician practice director at Riverside Fishing Bay Family Practice in Deltaville and knows the difficulty family care practices are having recruiting, particularly physicians seeking their successors.
“My worry is, who’s going to take care of my patients when I’m no longer around?” he says. “I think part of what we do as family physicians, we like to take care of the community. And the worry that a lot of us have is, what’s going to happen to those communities when we’re no longer able to practice?”
Inspired by a primary care doctor in her hometown, U.Va. medical student Emma Harrison plans to practice primary care medicine in a rural community. Photo by Norm Shafer
The symptoms
Although primary care can be defined in different ways, the category generally includes family care, general internal medicine, general pediatric care, and obstetrics and gynecology.
In 2019, Virginia had about 85 primary care physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants per 100,000 adult residents, which means it ranked No. 25 among states for numbers of primary care clinicians, according to a report from the Virginia Commonwealth University Department of Family Medicine and Population Health and the Ambulatory Care Outcomes Research Network, funded by the Virginia Department of Medical Assistance Services. According to those entities’ 2022 brief, Virginia needs 30% more primary care clinicians, or 1,456 more than the 4,872 it had in 2020 in order for all Virginians to have a primary care clinician they can see yearly.
Fewer than 10% of physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants work in non-metro areas of Virginia, although those areas account for 13% of the commonwealth’s population, according to the Virginia Department of Health’s Primary Care Needs Assessment publication.
Primary care clinicians are often patients’ first points of entry into the health care ecosystem, particularly in rural, underserved areas.
“Our training as primary care physicians, we’re trained to take care of a whole host of issues that walk through the office door,” Ransone says. “We’re also the ones who are trained to do preventative care.”
Access to primary care reduces emergency room visits because of that preventive care. Also, “we have relationships with patients,” says Dr. Steven Pearman, vice president of medical operations for Sentara Medical Group. “They trust us. We have pretty high confidence they’re going to come back if something’s not getting better.”
In addition to an expected shortage of health care professionals due to an aging workforce, the U.S. also has a pipeline issue, as graduating medical students are seeking specialty placements outside of primary care. The problem isn’t new, as more primary care clinicians in Virginia are closer to retirement than to starting their careers, according to a 2022 brief from VCU and ACORN. In 2019, about 20% of Virginia’s primary care workforce was 60 or older, while only 12% was under 40.
The diagnosis
One motivator for this choice is economics. Primary care physicians make less than other specialists, due, in part, to insurance reimbursement models.
“Because of the way our health system is set up in the U.S., if you do something physically — you do a surgery, you do a scope, you do something like that — those kinds of things get paid a lot more than sitting and talking with the patient and doing what we call more cognitive medicine,” Ransone says.
In Virginia, the annual mean wage for a family care physician in May 2022 was $224,940, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. The annual mean wage for a radiologist in Virginia was $313,420. For an emergency medicine physician, it was $315,290.
In an October 2022 report, the American Academy of Medical Colleges reported the mean education debt of medical school graduates was $205,037.
But primary care practitioners’ passion can outweigh a longer loan repayment timeline.
“While there’s not parity [between primary care and other specialties], it is still a significant amount of money, relevant to many industries,” says Dr. Sean Reed, director of the U.Va. School of Medicine’s Generalist Scholars Program and a UVA Health clinician. “But it’s really more about finding what gets you off the pillow every morning.”
Additionally, some primary care clinicians have retired early or left patient care positions because of burnout, exacerbated by the COVID-19 pandemic and patient vitriol.
“Even now, we have more tools [to combat COVID-19] … but there’s so much new sort of distrust in the health care system that it’s challenging when you go in wanting to be there for a family, for them not to trust in the care you recommend,” says Dr. Sandy Chung, CEO of Fairfax-based Trusted Doctors LLC and president of the American Academy of Pediatrics.
Trusted Doctors, which has about 180 clinicians across Virginia, Maryland and Washington, D.C., had to close a location in Maryland and reduce hours at a clinic in Virginia because of staffing shortages, Chung says.
The number of primary care practices that had a primary care clinician leave nearly doubled from 2018 to 2022, from about 40% to nearly 80%, according to the 2022 brief from VCU and ACORN. In 2022, a little over 40% of clinicians left practices to retire early.
Virginia’s government has taken some steps to help, adding $82 million to the budget approved in 2022 for Medicaid reimbursements for primary care providers.
Pay disparity in U.S. health insurance reimbursements contributes to medical students pursuing specialized medicine, says Dr. Sterling Ransone, board chair of the American Academy of Family Physicians. Photo by Mark Rhodes
Treatment options
On the pipeline front, Virginia medical schools are seeking to cultivate medical school students’ interest in primary care through targeted programs, often including financial incentives.
At U.Va., if students fulfill the Generalist Scholars Program requirements and match into a residency in one of four primary care fields — family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics or combined internal medicine-pediatrics — they receive a $40,000 scholarship.
In their third semester, GSP students hold a “Primary Care Week” focused on drawing medical school students’ attention to the primary care field.
U.Va. also encourages rural primary care. Harrison received the full-coverage A.K. Turner Scholarship on the condition that she practice general medicine five years in a rural Virginia area following her medical residency.
“Serving a small community as their doctor has been my dream forever, but the fact that U.Va. is fully … supporting me in this is just incredible,” she says.
At VCU’s School of Medicine, the Department of Family Medicine and Population Health’s division of epidemiology offers the Family Medicine Scholars Training and Admission Track (fmSTAT), which creates four-year cohorts of about eight to 10 students who receive additional mentorship, seminars and research opportunities. In their fourth year, students receive small scholarships, which vary but average about $10,000, says department chair
Dr. Scott Strayer.
Over the last 12 to 13 years, VCU has averaged 25 residents who match in primary care, and about 35% of those match in-state, Strayer says.
For their part, employers are upping the ante on recruitment and retention efforts for primary care physicians. Some health systems cite their missions and workplace wellness efforts as strong draws for clinical practitioners, but many employers are also offering financial incentives.
The Bon Secours St. Francis Family Medicine Residency, based in the health system’s St. Francis Medical Center in Midlothian, offers a stipend to retain residents. If a second-year resident commits to working at Bon Secours upon completing his residency, he will receive $72,000 in his second year and again in his third year.
“We’ve been very successful in retaining people that way. … I can tell you that that’s also very attractive to some. I have some medical students who decide to come here because of that. It’s a big help,” says Dr. Victor Agbeibor, the St. Francis residency program director.
Sentara Health provides stipends to some residents who agree to sign employment agreements in their second year, but Sentara declined to disclose amounts.
Physicians who work for nonprofit health systems like Roanoke’s Carilion Clinic for 10 years might qualify for the federal Public Service Loan Forgiveness program, which forgives remaining direct loan balance after 120 monthly payments.
Carilion also offers tiered loan repayment assistance, usually for four years. Carilion’s repayments vary, but the standard is about $10,000 per year, although amounts increase for physicians in rural areas, says Dr. Michael Jeremiah, Carilion senior vice president and chair of its Department of Family and Community Medicine.
Calling in consults
The state government also will match an organization’s loan support for qualifying practitioners in federally designated Health Professional Shortage Areas, up to $140,000 for a four-year commitment, via the Virginia State Loan Repayment Program, administered by the Virginia Department of Health.
Carilion offered loan repayment assistance for Dunbar’s position. “They ended up paying off my loans before I met all [of the fixed amount of assistance]. I had less loans than they offered [repayment for],” says Dunbar, who graduated from Eastern Virginia Medical School in 2009 and was able to finish repaying her loans with Carilion’s help in 2020.
In Fairfax, where it’s competing with area hospitals and health systems to hire primary care physicians, Trusted Doctors has offered sign-on bonuses, loan repayment assistance and stipends for moving expenses, Chung says. The practice’s payment rates for nurses have risen about 30% from pre-pandemic rates, but revenue has remained flat and other expenses, like rent, have risen.
“My practice is a big practice,” says Chung, adding that “it’s hard, especially for smaller practices, to be able to afford this.”
On the reimbursements front, Carilion converted 17 of its 42 primary care practices to meet the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ rural health clinic requirements, allowing those facilities to receive slightly higher reimbursement rates. The health system had to make structural changes, such as employing a nurse practitioner or physician assistant at each clinic, as well as meet all accreditation requirements. The CMS State Operations Manual chapter on the certification process for rural health clinics totals 467 pages.
Trusted Doctors also sought help at the source. It worked with an insurer to change its payment models so that behavioral health and preventive care work received larger reimbursements. But that increase isn’t about making a profit, Chung explains: “When we’re talking about more, we’re talking about not losing money, getting ourselves to break even, so basically paying more so that it’s sustainable.”
There’s hope for correcting the imbalance between primary care and other specialties, says Clark Barrineau, the Medical Society of Virginia’s assistant vice president of government affairs and public policy. “I don’t feel in my bones that we are not capable of fixing this, or at least improving upon it” by focusing on wellness in retention efforts and economic incentives in recruitment efforts, Barrineau says. “The good news is that everyone sees the problem.”
Despite the heavy workload and disparate pay, primary care providers say their passion is what keeps them in their chosen field.
“Even though the work is a lot, it’s always rewarding. There’s never a day that I don’t feel like I was doing something fulfilling and making a difference,” Dunbar says.
Taking care of the whole person, whether it’s a cough, a rash, a sore knee or something more serious, is enticing, Harrison says. “Being the primary care physician, you really develop a sense of trust with your patients. And that’s just what medicine is all about, you know — taking care of people.”
Natalie S. Masri will assume the role of president and CEO of the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce on June 1, the chamber announced Tuesday.
She succeeds Andrea Copeland, who has served as the chamber’s interim president since February and will become the chamber’s chief operating officer.
Masri most recently founded Brave May LLC, a consulting firm focused on corporate social responsibility, women’s economic empowerment, sustainability and diversity, equity and inclusion. The U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation Corporate Citizenship Center was a client of the firm.
“I am honored to lead the Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce,” Masri said in a statement. “Having worked with chambers around the country as they tackle local challenges, I’m eager to apply those lessons in my home community.”
Masri held various roles with the U.S. Chamber of Commerce from 2004 through 2016, culminating in spearheading the U.S. Chamber of Commerce Foundation’s Center for Women in Business as a senior director of special projects.
She holds a bachelor’s degree from the University of Calgary, in Canada.
Copeland began volunteering with Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce’s Ambassador Corps in 2007 and joined the chamber staff in 2012 as director of member education services and of the chamber’s Leadership Charlottesville program until 2020, when she became the Committee Engagement Director.
Copeland holds an associate degree from Piedmont Virginia Community College and a bachelor’s from Old Dominion University.
The Charlottesville Regional Chamber of Commerce has about 680 members, primarily located in Charlottesville and Albemarle County.
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