Medicare News
| For Immediate Release: | Contact: |
| Monday, February 17, 1997 | CMS Office of Public Affairs 202-690-6145 |
For questions about Medicare please call 1-800-MEDICARE or visit www.medicare.gov. |
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NEW YORK TEACHING HOSPITALS PARTICIPATE IN GRADUATE MEDICAL EDUCATION DEMONSTRATION
The Health Care Financing Administration (HCFA) today unveiled a Medicare demonstration project designed to help teaching hospitals test ways of redesigning graduate medical education (GME) programs.
HCFA will provide incentive payments totaling $400 million over six years to teaching hospitals in New York State that will reduce the number of residents they train. The funds will help hospitals transfer residents' patient care duties to other health care professionals. The goal is to provide high-quality care in a more cost-effective manner while reducing hospitals' reliance on residents and promoting primary care training.
Under the demonstration project, participating hospitals that substantially increase their proportion of primary care training or coordinate their medical education program through a consortium involving a number of hospitals will reduce the number of residents by 20 percent over five years. Other participating hospitals will reduce the number of residents by 25 percent.
Medicare currently supports GME programs by making special payments to teaching hospitals based on the number of medical residents that train and provide services in each hospital. Medicare's GME payments in 1997 are expected to total over $7 billion nationally, with approximately 20 percent going to teaching hospitals in New York. By reducing the number of residents, the project will reduce Medicare GME payments for savings of up to $300 million.
"Until now Medicare has been giving hospitals an incentive to hire more residents. We need to change that," said HCFA administrator Bruce C. Vladeck, who announced the demonstration project at New York's Mt. Sinai Medical Center. "This demonstration will help show how Medicare can get the most for its money while helping teaching hospitals to adapt their residency programs to meet the needs of the evolving health care system."
HCFA will study how the hospitals in the demonstration adapt to smaller residency programs and make the results available to hospitals elsewhere as they face similar challenges.
So far 41 hospitals have agreed to participate. They currently train 10,286 residents, for which they receive some $900 million annually in Medicare special payments for medical education. They are:
- Buffalo Consortium:
- Buffalo General Hospital
- Children's Hospital of Buffalo
- Erie County Medical Center
- Mercy Hospital
- Millard Fillmore Hospital
- Niagara Falls Memorial Hospital
- Roswell Park Cancer Institute
- Sisters Hospital.
- Mount Sinai Consortium:
- Cabrini Medical Center
- Elmhurst Hospital Center
- Mount Sinai Medical Center
- Queens Hospital Center.
- New York University Consortium:
- Bellevue Hospital Center
- Brooklyn Hospital Center
- Hospital for Joint Diseases and Orthopaedic Institute
- Lenox Hill Hospital
- New York Downtown Hospital
- New York University Medical Center.
- Joint Applicants:
- Jacobi Medical Center and North Central Bronx Hospital
- Maimonides Medical Center, Coney Island Hospital and Interfaith Medical Center
- Presbyterian Hospital and New York Hospital, St. Barnabas Hospital and Lincoln Medical and Mental Health Center
- Westchester County Medical Center, Sound Shore Medical Center and Mount Vernon Hospital.
- Individual Applicants:
- Beth Israel Medical Center
- Catholic Medical Center
- Harlem Hospital
- Kings County Hospital Center
- Long Island Jewish Medical Center
- Metropolitan Hospital Center
- Montefiore Medical Center
- New York Eye and Ear Infirmary
- St. Luke's-Roosevelt Hospital Center
- Saint Vincents Hospital and Medical Center of New York
- Woodhull Medical and Mental Health Center.
