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Budget Cuts And Their Potential Complications For Family Medicine

Every day in the news, you hear about the United States federal budget and the potential political complications if something is done or if nothing is done. And every day in the news you hear about possible cuts in Medicare. What you don’t know is that some cuts in Medicare can significantly impact the training of future Family Physicians. What do I mean by this? Well, did you know that residency programs are paid Medicare funds (called Graduate Medical Education funds) going to hospitals? Check out this great article about how residency programs are funded.

So, let’s play this out with its potential complications for Family Medicine. If GME funds are cut as they are proposed, then many hospitals with only one residency program (usually a Family Medicine program), may be forced to close the program – thereby decreasing the number of Family Physicians being trained. In those hospitals with multispecialty programs (like large university hospitals), cuts in GME funding would force hospitals to cut their Family Medicine residency slots in favor of more specialty residency slots, which are more lucrative for hospitals. Again, this would decrease the number of Family Physicians being trained.

With GME funding being cut, there are two other disturbing possibilities that may happen. First, Read more »

*This blog post was originally published at Family Medicine Rocks Blog - Mike Sevilla, MD*

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