Physician Workforce: Caps on Medicare-Funded Graduate Medical Education at Teaching Hospitals
Before physicians practice medicine independently, they receive on-the-job training as residents in teaching hospitals. These residents are vital providers of health care during their training, and many stay in the geographic area to practice after their training is completed.
Medicare pays these hospitals to offset some of the costs of training physician residents. For most hospitals, Medicare caps the number of residents it will fund per hospital based on how many residents it funded in 1996.
We found that 70% of hospitals trained more residents than Medicare funded—indicating they can train more physicians now than when these caps were set.
GAO REPORT
GAO
June 22, 2021 11:05 am
Physician Workforce: Caps on Medicare-Funded Graduate Medical Education at Teaching Hospitals
Before physicians practice medicine independently, they receive on-the-job training as residents in teaching hospitals. These residents are vital providers of health care during their training, and many stay in the geographic area to practice after their training is completed.
Medicare pays these hospitals to offset some of the costs of training physician residents. For most hospitals, Medicare caps the number of residents it will fund per hospital based on how many residents it funded in 1996.
We found that 70% of hospitals trained more residents than Medicare funded—indicating they can train more physicians now than when these caps were set.