Greenville Reporter

Congressman Murphy, M.D. introduced legislation to ensure that unallocated graduate medical education (GME) slots created in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 and the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023 go to hospitals located in rural areas.

"Decades of real-world data show rural trained physicians are more likely to practice in rural communities," said Congressman Greg Murphy, M.D. "To grow the physician workforce and increase access to care for patients throughout the nation, we must prioritize the areas of need that are experiencing the most acute physician workforce shortages. Rural hospitals are struggling to recruit physicians with increasing difficulty, in part because of an imbalance in the apportionment of graduate medical education slots. Health care access continues to decline in rural America, and we must act swiftly to reverse this dangerous trend. Failure to do so will lead to more hospital and physician practice closures, greater instability in the supply of new physicians, and further burden patients already forced to travel long distances for care."

"Too many rural communities are facing a shortage of qualified health professionals and physicians," said Ways and Means Committee Chairman Jason Smith. "We know that medical students who train in rural areas are more likely to stay and practice in those areas. Unfortunately, due to a loophole in the Graduate Medical Education program, non-rural hospitals are siphoning funding meant for rural residency training. Rep. Murphy’s bill, the Rural Physician Workforce Preservation Act, will close the loophole and ensure that these physician training slots go to truly rural hospitals to support the next generation of doctors in rural America."

“The National Rural Health Association thanks Representative Murphy for his dedication to increasing rural physician training," said Alan Morgan, Chief Executive Officer, National Rural Health Association. "We are pleased to see that this bill would allocate the 10% rural set aside for the remaining new Medicare GME slots to geographically rural hospitals. Few truly rural hospitals received slots in the past two rounds of distribution, and we are excited to see this fixed to support more rural training, which is proven to lead to more physicians practicing in rural communities."

In the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021, Congress created 1,000 additional Medicare-funded full-time equivalent resident cap slots for eligible hospitals to be phased in over five years. Additionally, in the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2023, Congress provided 200 additional graduate medical education slots, with 100 required to go to psychiatry or psychiatry subspecialties. These new residency slots were historic investments in Medicare graduate medical education and were intended to encourage physician training in rural communities.