Congress Tackles Rural Health
Published May 28, 2024
By AACOM Government Relations
Advocacy Federal Policy GME GME Funding Healthcare Workforce OME Advocate Rural Medicine
- On May 8, 2024, the House Committee on Ways and Means advanced six bills, including the Rural Physician Workforce Preservation Act (H.R. 8235), introduced by Representative Greg Murphy (R-NC). The legislation builds on the landmark 2020 and 2022 congressional achievements to increase Medicare-funded physician residency slots by ensuring that 10 percent of the 1200 new slots go to rural hospitals and removes the “treated as rural” definition, which allows hospitals that only partially train residents in rural areas to receive the slots.
- View AACOM’s in-depth analysis of the Ways and Means markup.
- At the May 16, 2024, Senate Finance Committee hearing, “Rural Health Care: Supporting Lives and Improving Communities,” Lori Rodefeld, MS, director of graduate medical education (GME) development at the Wisconsin Collaborative for Rural GME, highlighted innovative approaches to solving rural healthcare workforce shortages, including rural-based residency training.
- Senator Chuck Grassley (R-IA) noted his concern that the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is not meeting the rural and underserved threshold, set in law, as they distribute the 1200 new residency slots. Ms. Rodefeld concurred that CMS is not prioritizing rural hospitals due to the “treated as rural” language in the statute that classifies some urban hospitals as rural.
- View AACOM’s analysis for a comprehensive summary of the Finance hearing.