After sorting through options for health coverage and selecting a plan, consumers using the health insurance exchange will confront another, perhaps more difficult, task: finding an available doctor.

Primary care physicians have long been a scarce commodity in New Jersey and across the country, and many expect that increased patient demand, with hundreds of thousands of additional people searching for a doctor, will stress the system further.

There are 22,400 licensed physicians actively practicing in New Jersey, but just 3,500 work as primary care providers in family, geriatric and internal medicine, according to a new report by the N.J. Council of Teaching Hospitals. That’s about one primary doctor for every 2,500 residents in the state, the report said. Click here to read the report.