The Importance of Preserving Highly Skilled Ob-Gyn Care

December 10, 2025

Excellence in obstetric and gynecologic health care is an essential element of the long-term physical, intellectual, social, and economic well-being of any society.¹ Ob-gyns serve multiple roles throughout a patient’s lifespan, both as specialty physicians who provide integrated medical and surgical care for complex conditions, as well as prevention and screening services for health maintenance. The discipline requires extensive training and knowledge of reproductive physiology, including the physiologic, social, cultural, environmental, and genetic factors that influence disease. This study and understanding gives obstetrician–gynecologists a unique perspective in addressing their patients’ health care issues.

It is essential to the health of patients and the community that access to highly skilled ob-gyns is preserved and supported. Ob-gyns deliver primary and preventive care services to their patients and may be the only clinicians their patients see on a regular basis.² Their extensive training prepares ob-gyns to identify, manage, and treat complex conditions, as well as recognize normal versus abnormal symptoms and promote overall patient wellness. Supporting and preserving the ob-gyn workforce, and the ability to sustainably provide care in their communities, is of vital importance.

Ob-gyns are trained surgeons that have demonstrated acumen in addressing emergency conditions, obstetric complications, and complex gynecologic surgeries. They share a commitment to lifelong learning and maintenance of technical knowledge and skills, and strive to provide the most advanced, evidence-based, medically accurate, and patient-centered ob-gyn health care.

As leaders in the care of patients in need of obstetric and gynecologic care, ACOG recognizes and affirms the importance of ob-gyn training and education, skills, and clinical competencies to ensure safe and quality health care for their patients.

In order to support ob-gyns in their communities, ACOG calls for:

• The importance of preservation of highly skilled care delivered by obstetrician-gynecologists to improve the lives of all people seeking obstetric and gynecologic care, their families, and communities and in recognition of patient populations with increased complexity and comorbidity
• Practice models that recognize and support the extensive training and clinical role of ob-gyns and their place as leaders in team-based care models
• Appropriate payment and reimbursement practices that fairly compensate ob-gyns and reverse the current economic threats to sustainability of practice in the profession³
• Public and private payment policies that support the delivery of obstetric care to pregnant and postpartum individuals and fairly reimburse ob-gyns for providing that care³
• Government policies that preserve labor and delivery units, including in rural and other underserved areas
• Policies that provide ob-gyns with appropriate and timely access to surgical facilities
• Relief from unnecessary administrative burdens that divert clinician resources away from patient care
• Policies that support the continued viability of a variety of ob-gyn practice settings, including private practice, and ensure that individual clinicians have the practical skills, knowledge, and information needed to make informed choices regarding practice settings
• Recognition of the importance of equity and equitable access to reproductive health care to both patients in need of care and the decision of clinicians to specialize in ob-gyn care, including where to obtain training and establish their practice
• An end to legislative interference in and the criminalization of the practice of evidence-based medicine⁴
• Support pathways to increase the funding for and availability of GME funding for ob-gyn residency positions

ACOG recognizes the importance of trained clinicians (ie, other physician specialists and qualified health care professionals) in supporting obstetric and gynecologic care and encourages adoption of team-based and collaborative practice models. Specifically, ACOG:

• Affirms that all clinicians involved in women’s health care should have robust licensing, quality, and peer review processes
• Recognizes that clinical tasks should be shared and/or delegated in keeping with each clinician’s training, expertise, and scope of practice
• Supports pathways to accredited education that prioritize patient safety
• Recognizes the value of interprofessional education for ob-gyn residents and advanced practice clinicians

References

1. Access to Obstetric and Gynecologic Health Care | ACOG
2. Mazzoni S, Brewer S, Durfee J, Pyrzanowski J, Barnard J, Dempsey AF, O'Leary ST. Patient Perspectives of Obstetrician-Gynecologists as Primary Care Providers. J Reprod Med. 2017 Jan-Feb;62(1–2):3–8. PMID: 29999273.
3. Payment for Obstetricians and Gynecologists | ACOG
4. Legislative Interference with Patient Care, Medical Decisions, and the Patient-Physician Relationship | ACOG

Approved by the Board of Directors: November 2025