AMA to fund graduate medical education, address physician shortages

CHICAGO — The American Medical Association (AMA) adopted policy at its Annual Meeting today to build upon its efforts aimed at modernizing and increasing funding for graduate medical education (GME). The new policy calls for the AMA to continue advocating for legislation that removes the caps on Medicare-funded residency positions, which were imposed by the Balanced Budget Amendment of 1997, to help ensure an adequate physician workforce to meet the nation’s growing needs for health care services.

The new policy also calls on the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to coordinate with the federal agencies that fund GME training to identify and collect information needed to effectively evaluate how hospitals, health systems, and health centers with residency programs are using these financial resources. This includes gathering information and reporting back on payment amounts by the type of training programs supported, resident training costs and revenue generation, output or outcomes related to health workforce planning, and measures related to resident competency and educational quality offered by GME training programs.