July 28, 2023 – The HHS has awarded nearly $11 million to 15 awardees to strengthen the health workforce by establishing new residency programs in rural communities.
Nearly 70 percent of areas designated as primary medical Health Professional Shortage Areas are in rural areas. Physician shortages, poverty, and geographic isolation contribute to lack of access to care and poorer health outcomes for rural Americans. More than half of rural U.S. counties lack hospital obstetric services. In response to the declining access to rural maternal health care, three of today’s 15 awards will be used specifically to develop new family medicine residency programs with enhanced obstetrical training in rural communities.
Award recipients will each receive up to $750,000 to establish new rural residency programs. This funding may be used to support accreditation costs, curriculum development, faculty recruitment and retention, resident recruitment activities, and consultation services to support program development (e.g., financing). Throughout the duration of their grant, award recipients will have access to one-on-one advisor support, tools, and resources provided by the HRSA funded Rural Residency Planning and Development Technical Assistance Center to navigate the various stages of program development.
Retaining and recruiting physicians in underserved and rural areas remains a critical priority of the Biden-Harris Administration. Today’s awards build on over $43 million that HRSA invested in the Rural Residency Planning and Development program from fiscal year 2019 through 2022.
CMS has also been taking critical steps to advance health equity and access to care. In January 2023, CMS awarded the first 200 of 1,000 new Medicare-funded physician residency slots. In allocating these new residency slots, CMS prioritized hospitals with training programs in geographic areas demonstrating the greatest need for additional providers, as determined by Health Professional Shortage Areas. CMS is also working to implement the new residency slots for psychiatry positions in fiscal year 2025 that Congress established in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023.
For fiscal year 2024, CMS proposed that rural emergency hospitals (REHs) could be designated as graduate medical education training sites. As a result, more medical residents would be able to train in rural settings, which can help address workforce shortages in these communities. This proposal builds on other policies to support access to care in rural and other underserved communities. These changes, if finalized, would help support graduate medical training in rural areas by allowing these rural hospitals to serve as training sites for Medicare GME payment purposes after they become REHs.