Jeffrey S. Barkin, MD, DLFAPA, is a practicing psychiatrist in Portland and the former president of the Maine Medical Association. He co-hosts “A Healthy Conversation” on WGAN.

Not long ago, a physician I know — someone deeply respected in our community — told me something that stopped me in my tracks.

His longtime primary care doctor had just retired after decades of caring for patients. It was a well-earned retirement. But when my colleague began the simple task of finding a new primary care physician, he encountered a reality that is becoming increasingly common across Maine.

He couldn’t find one.

He called practices throughout the region, hoping to establish care with another physician. Some offices told him they were no longer accepting new patients. Others offered waiting lists stretching many months into the future. A few simply said there was no availability at all. Months later, despite being a physician who understands the system and knows many doctors across the state, he still does not have a primary care doctor.

If a well-connected physician cannot find a doctor, what does that say about the situation facing everyone else?

Across Maine, access to primary care is quietly slipping out of reach. The state already has the oldest population in the nation, meaning the demand for medical care continues to grow. At the same time, many primary care physicians are approaching retirement age, and fewer young doctors are choosing primary care careers. Mounting administrative burdens, rising practice costs and enormous student loan debt are pushing new graduates toward higher-paying specialties.

The result is a widening gap between patients who need care and physicians available to provide it. Tens of thousands of Maine residents are currently searching for a primary care provider, and the shortage is expected to deepen as more physicians retire in the coming decade.

Statistics describe the problem. The human stories reveal its cost.

Recently I spoke with a married couple who are both physicians. Several years ago they moved to rural Maine with a clear purpose: to open a small primary care practice in a community where many residents had struggled for months — sometimes years — to find a doctor. They renovated a modest clinic on the town’s main street, hung a simple sign outside the door and began seeing patients who had been waiting far too long for care.

Many of their patients now drive 30 or 40 miles for an appointment because there are few other options nearby. Within months, the practice was full.

Their patients are grateful. Their work matters deeply to the community. Yet despite being two practicing physicians working long hours to care for others, they face a stunning reality. They cannot afford health insurance for themselves and their children.

Because they run a small independent practice, they must purchase insurance on the individual market. The premiums available to them approach $35,000 a year for comprehensive coverage for a family of four. Deductibles would add thousands more. For a small rural practice operating on tight margins, those costs consume an enormous share of income.

In practical terms, two physicians who dedicate their lives to caring for others are struggling to insure their own families.

If that sounds like something out of a dystopian novel, it should.

But it is not fiction — it is the lived experience of physicians working on the front lines of health care in Maine today.

Primary care is the foundation of effective health care. A good primary care physician helps patients prevent illness, manage chronic disease, coordinate specialty care and navigate an increasingly complicated medical landscape. When primary care works well, people stay healthier, hospitalizations decrease and health care costs fall.

Yet primary care physicians operate in a system that often undervalues their work.

Doctors spend hours each day navigating insurance authorizations, billing codes, quality reporting requirements and electronic documentation demands that pull them away from patient care. Administrative complexity has become so overwhelming that many physicians now spend nearly as much time interacting with computers as they do interacting with patients.

Small independent practices struggle to survive financially in this environment. Meanwhile, young physicians graduate from medical school with debt that can exceed $400,000. Faced with those financial pressures, many understandably choose specialties that offer higher compensation and fewer bureaucratic obstacles.

The consequences are visible across Maine. Fewer physicians choose primary care. Practices close their panels to new patients. Waitlists grow longer. Patients who once had a trusted family doctor now find themselves searching for care in urgent care clinics or hospital emergency departments.

When patients cannot find primary care, the entire health care system becomes less efficient. People delay treatment because they cannot access routine care. Preventable conditions worsen until they become emergencies. Emergency departments become crowded with patients who simply have nowhere else to turn.

And when that happens, health care costs rise even further.

None of this is inevitable.

There are practical steps policymakers could take to strengthen primary care in Maine and across the country.

First, we must reduce the administrative burdens that consume so much of physicians’ time. Simplifying insurance authorization requirements and documentation rules would allow doctors to focus on what they were trained to do — care for patients.

Second, reimbursement systems should better recognize the value of primary care. Studies consistently show that health systems built on strong primary care produce better outcomes and lower overall costs. Yet primary care physicians are often paid far less than specialists whose work depends on expensive procedures.

Third, we should expand programs that help medical students enter primary care without crushing financial debt. Loan repayment programs, residency incentives and targeted workforce initiatives can help bring new physicians into communities where they are most needed.

Finally, we should support the survival of small independent practices. These practices often provide deeply personal, community-based care, yet they operate in a financial environment that increasingly favors large health care systems.

None of these solutions require ideological battles. They require practical leadership and a shared commitment to ensuring that patients can access the care they need.

Because beneath every policy debate lies a much simpler question: Can people get medical care when they need it?

The physician searching unsuccessfully for a doctor is not asking for special treatment. The rural doctors struggling to insure their family are not asking for sympathy. Both are simply confronting the same reality that many Americans now face: a health care system that increasingly fails to guarantee access to care.

Ensuring that people can find a doctor when they need one is neither a liberal nor a conservative idea. It is a practical necessity and a moral responsibility.

A society is judged, in part, by how it cares for its people when they are vulnerable — when they are sick, frightened or unsure where to turn.

Today in Maine, too many people are discovering that finding a doctor is no longer guaranteed. When even doctors cannot find doctors, something fundamental has gone wrong. When even doctors cannot find doctors, it is no longer a warning. It is evidence that the system is already breaking.