RSS FeedMedicare Cuts, Health Care Innovation, and the Physician Workforce
22 November 2011With this week’s failure of the Congressional “super committee” to save Medicare from projected funding cuts, many healthcare experts are predicting very dire consequences for the physician workforce if the cuts are not prevented. Multiple industry analysts including the AAMC predict shortages of up to 90,000 physicians in coming years.
Darin Haug, D.O., and Dean of the Osteopathic College of Medicine at Kansas City University of Medicine writes:
“Cutting funding for GME programs would result in fewer physicians being trained, and as a result, less access to care and fewer patients being cared for.”
Dr. Haug details the role Medicare funding plays in training physicians, and how the proposed Medicare cuts will directly impact the physician workforce, in a negative way. As he points out, the current $9.5 billion in funding already supports an “insufficient” number of physician training slots. So, one has to wonder, what does the super committee think is going to happen when the already inadequate funding is cut further?
Meanwhile, the federal government has set aside up to $1 billion for the “Health Care Innovation Challenge” to grant funding to organizations, institutions, or individuals who can propose innovative ways to train and deploy more healthcare workers, including physicians, and accelerate the expansion of the workforce to meet growing demand in light of health reform and the aging U.S. population. The program’s website states:
“If your [Health Care Innovation] proposal has strong evidence that it can start quickly, reduce costs, and improve health care, you can qualify for approximately $1 million to $30 million in an up-front investment. Priority is given to proposals that retrain workers and support job creation.”
On one hand, the government has set aside such a significant amount of new funding to help expand and grow the healthcare and physician workforce. On the other hand, they are planning to cut millions of dollars from an existing source of funding for thousands of physician residency training and fellowship programs.
What is wrong with this picture? Why is the Congressional super committee aiming to cut Medicare funding that specifically and directly trains physicians, while the administration is throwing $1 billion at new training/deployment programs which are yet-to-be-determined and may or may not help to expand the physician workforce? Does anyone else think that this is a less-than-effective way for the government to try to alleviate the projected physician shortage?
It reminds me of a time a couple of years ago, when many state governments were laying off teachers due to budget cuts, while another government program was paying people to go to school to obtain their college degrees in education to become teachers. To me, providing funding for something and simultaneously cutting funding for the same sector of the economy or government doesn’t make much sense. Then again I’m just a physician recruiter, not a professional politician or government representative.
More:
- Read Dr. Haug’s article on the impact of the Medicare cuts on the physician workforce
- Health Care Innovation Challenge
- Super Committee failure leaves Medicare cuts in place (American Medical News)
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