Advocacy Issue: Workforce
A talented, qualified, engaged and diverse workforce is at the heart of America’s hospitals and health care systems. However, hospitals and health systems now face mounting and critical physician shortages — estimated to reach 124,000 physicians by 2033 — that will jeopardize access to care in communities across the nation.
These shortages — combined with an aging population, a rise in chronic diseases and behavioral health conditions, physician burnout from the pandemic, and “state-of-the-art” care delivery advancements — all contribute to a need for robust graduate medical education (GME) funding to adequately prepare America’s health care workforce for the health system of the future and ensure continued access to care.
Congress enacted the Medicare GME program to ensure a sufficient supply of well-trained physicians. However, the current cap on Medicare-supported residency positions, imposed by the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, restricts the number of positions for which teaching hospitals can receive direct GME funding (DGME) and the amount of indirect graduate medical education (IME) funding they receive.
AHA Position
Congress should take a number of actions to help hospitals and health systems support today’s workforce and ensure a future pipeline of professionals to meet the nation’s increasing demands for care, including:
- Protecting health care workers from violence
- Increasing the number of GME positions
- Attracting caregivers to underserved areas
- Mitigating health care provider shortages
- Addressing administrative burdens
- Supporting loan repayment programs
Key Resources
- Fact Sheet: Increased Graduate Medical Education Needed to Preserve Access to Care
- Letter: AHA Supports the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act of 2023 (H.R. 2389)
- Comments: AHA Provides Information for Hearing on “Examining Existing Federal Programs to Build a Stronger Health Workforce and Improve Primary Care”
- Boardroom Brief: How Boards Can Support Workforce Behavioral Health