WASHINGTON DC (October 18, 2019) — Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles "Chuck" Grassley sent a letter to Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Alex Azar seeking information on Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs, how the money is spent and what oversight processes are currently in place to prevent waste, fraud and abuse of the programs.
“With three separate reports by non-partisan institutes highlighting potential waste of these funds, Congress must take a closer look at the GME program to increase oversight and transparency, and ensure that taxpayer money is being spent in a manner that accords with congressional intent and achieves the highest public good,” Sen Grassley wrote.
The Medicare GME payment was designed to cover Medicare’s share of the costs incurred to train the medical residents, with the other costs paid by private insurance and the hospital. On average, the Medicare GME program pays hospitals approximately $129,000 per medical resident slot with little transparency or accountability on how that money is spent.
According to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s (MedPAC), Medicare is paying hospitals nearly twice the amount in costs that hospitals incur in training a resident. Further, hospitals receive several financial and non-financial benefits by operating a medical residency program, such as: subsidized labor (including on-call coverage), the prestige of managing a residency program, increased donations, higher patient-volumes, and the ability to negotiate higher prices from private payers, among other benefits.
Text of the letter is available HERE.
