Financing graduate medical education--mounting pressure for reform

The Relation of the Chronic Disease Epidemic to the Health Care Crisis

Currently, some 50% of the US population has a chronic disease, creating an epidemic, and 86% of health care costs are attributable to chronic disease. The medical profession and its leadership did not recognize or respond appropriately to the rising prevalence of chronic disease. As a consequence, a health care crisis emerged, with inadequate access to care and quality of care together with excessive costs. In the years since the 1950s, when the chronic disease prevalence grew, the clinical literature did not follow. It remained preoccupied with acute disease. Similarly, medical education did not change. Studies and critiques gave little or modest attention to the rising dominance of chronic disease and neglected elements of good care. Recently, some health services responding to their growing number of patients with chronic illness have designed and tested new ways of providing care. They have found that, as a result, the patient's health outcomes were improved, costs of care were lower, and patient satisfaction was higher. These results and experiences provide examples of what can be done. The health care crisis and the emergence of a chronic disease epidemic coincided to a substantial degree. Although the epidemic did not cause the crisis, it contributed significantly. Now, the medical profession and its leadership are confronted by the responsibility to build a practice of medicine and a health care system that better meet the needs of patients with chronic illness and reduces the health care crisis.

Flexible competency based medical education: More time efficient, higher costs

The financing of postgraduate medical education (PGME) becomes an important topic. PGME is costly, and in most western countries is partly paid by public funding. One of the models that can help to reduce costs is time-variable PGME. Moving to true outcome-based education can lead to more efficient training programs while maintaining educational quality. We analyzed the financial effects of time-variable PGME by identifying the educational activities of PGME programs and comparing the costs and revenues of these activities in gynecology training as an example. This resulted in a revenue-cost balance of PGME activities in gynecology. As gynecology consists of both surgical and non-surgical parts, this specialty is a good starting point for a training cost analysis that can be used for a more general discussion. Shortening PGME programs without losing educational quality appears to be possible with time-variable structures. However, shortening is only safely possible on those areas in which residents have already obtained the desired level of competence. This means that time can be gained at the expense of those educational activities in which residents generate the highest revenues. We therefore conclude that shorter education with the help of time-variable training schemes leads to overall higher costs at the hospital level.

A Prospective Multicenter Evaluation of the Value of the On-Call Orthopedic Resident

BACKGROUND

Funding for graduate medical education is at risk despite the services provided by residents.

OBJECTIVE

We quantified the potential monetary value of services provided by on-call orthopedic surgery residents.

METHODS

We conducted a prospective, cross-sectional, multicenter cohort study design. Over a 90-day period in 2014, we collected data on consults by on-call orthopedic surgery residents at 4 tertiary academic medical centers in the United States. All inpatient and emergency department consults evaluated by first-call residents during the study period were eligible for inclusion. Based on their current procedural terminology codes, procedures and evaluations for each consult were assigned a relative value unit and converted into a monetary value to determine the value of services provided by residents. The primary outcome measures were the total dollar value of each consult and the percentage of resident salaries that could be funded by the generated value of the resident consult services.

RESULTS

In total, 2644 consults seen by 33 residents from the 4 institutions were included for analysis. These yielded an average value of $81,868 per center for the 90-day study period, that is, $327,471 annually. With a median resident stipend of $53,992, the extrapolated average percentage of resident stipends that could be funded by these consult revenues was 73% of the stipends of the residents who took call or 36% of the stipends of the overall resident cohort.

CONCLUSIONS

The potential monetary value generated by on-call orthopedic surgery residents is substantial.

Evaluating the Effect of Physician Fellowship Programs on Surgical Outcomes for Coronary Artery Bypass Grafting Procedures

This study examined the relationship between fellowship training of thoracic surgeons and their patient outcomes following a coronary artery bypass graft (CABG) procedure. The study used data obtained from hospital discharges from Florida hospitals from 2006 to 2010 and linked them with the quality of the hospital wherein the physician completed his or her fellowship. Quality rankings were based on the hospital's national ranking among cardiovascular hospitals at the time when the fellowship was completed. A risk-adjusted analysis showed that completing a fellowship in a nationally ranked cardiovascular hospital and a longer time since fellowship and residency completion were associated with lower complication rates for CABG surgeries. This is the first study to incorporate hospital discharge data, external hospital quality rankings, and physician training characteristics to evaluate patient outcomes. Such knowledge could help shape the future direction of health care training and provide an objective, outcomes-based evaluation method for physician training programs.

Realizing the promise of competency-based medical education

Competency-based medical education (CBME) places a premium on both educational and clinical outcomes. The Milestones component of the Next Accreditation System represents a fundamental change in medical education in the United States and is part of the drive to realize the full promise of CBME. The Milestones framework provides a descriptive blueprint in each specialty to guide curriculum development and assessment practices. From the beginning of the Outcomes project in 1999, the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education and the larger medical education community recognized the importance of improving their approach to assessment. Work-based assessments, which rely heavily on the observations and judgments of clinical faculty, are central to a competency-based approach. The direct observation of learners and the provision of robust feedback have always been recognized as critical components of medical education, but CBME systems further elevate their importance. Without effective and frequent direct observation, coaching, and feedback, the full potential of CBME and the Milestones cannot be achieved. Furthermore, simply using the Milestones as end-of-rotation evaluations to "check the box" to meet requirements undermines the intent of an outcomes-based accreditation system. In this Commentary, the author explores these challenges, addressing the concerns raised by Williams and colleagues in their Commentary. Meeting the assessment challenges of the Milestones will require a renewed commitment from institutions to meet the profession's "special obligations" to patients and learners. All stakeholders in graduate medical education must commit to a professional system of self-regulation to prepare highly competent physicians to fulfill this social contract.

Addressing the nation's physician workforce needs: The Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) recommendations on graduate medical education reform

The Graduate Medical Education (GME) system in the United States (US) has garnered worldwide respect, graduating over 25,000 new physicians from over 8,000 residency and fellowship programs annually. GME is the portal of entry to medical practice and licensure in the US, and the pathway through which resident physicians develop the competence to practice independently and further develop their career plans. The number and specialty distribution of available GME positions shapes the overall composition of our national workforce; however, GME is failing to provide appropriate programs that support the delivery of our society's system of healthcare. This paper, prepared by the Health Policy Education Subcommittee of the Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM) and unanimously endorsed by SGIM's Council, outlines a set of recommendations on how to reform the GME system to best prepare a physician workforce that can provide high quality, high value, population-based, and patient-centered health care, aligned with the dynamic needs of our nation's healthcare delivery system. These recommendations include: accurate workforce needs assessment, broadened GME funding sources, increased transparency of the use of GME dollars, and implementation of incentives to increase the accountability of GME-funded programs for the preparation and specialty selection of their program graduates.

Assessing the Value of Work Done by an Orthopedic Resident During Call

BACKGROUND

Medicare funding for graduate medical education may be cut in the next federal budget.

OBJECTIVE

We quantified the value of work that 1 orthopedic surgery resident performs on call and compare it to Medicare educational funding received by the hospital for each resident.

METHODS

A single orthopedic resident's on-call emergency department and inpatient consults were collected during a 2-year call period at a large, tertiary, level-1 trauma center. Patient charts were reviewed; ICD-9 codes, evaluation and management, and procedural treatment were recorded. Codes were converted into work relative value units. The number of work relative value units was multiplied by the 2012 Medicare rate of $34.03 per relative value units to calculate the monetary value of resident work.

RESULTS

Of 120 resident call shifts, 115 call sheets (95.8%) were available for review, and 1160 patients were seen (average  =  10.09 consults/call). A total of 4688 work relative value units were generated (average  =  40.76 per night), and the total dollar value generated was $159,561 ($1,387 per call) during the 2 years of call (average  =  $79,780 annually). Evaluation and management codes generated 2340 work relative value units, with a calculated dollar amount of $79,648, and procedural codes generated 2348 work relative value units, with a calculated dollar amount of $79,913.

CONCLUSIONS

Our institution estimated Medicare direct medical education support per resident at $40,000/y, and total funding was $130,000/resident. At our tertiary care institution, the unbilled work of 1 orthopedic resident on call amounts to more than 60% of Medicare direct medical education and indirect medical education funding annually.

Financial sustainability of academic health centers: identifying challenges and strategic responses

Academic health centers (AHCs) play a vital role in the health care system. The training of health care personnel and delivery of health care services, especially to the most complex and financially challenged patients, has been a responsibility increasingly shouldered by AHCs over the years. Additionally, AHCs play a significant role in researching and developing new treatment protocols, including discovering and validating new health technologies. However, AHCs face unique financial challenges in fulfilling their social mission in the health care system. Reforms being implemented under the Affordable Care Act and shifting economic patterns are threatening the financial sustainability of AHCs.The authors review challenges facing AHCs, including training new health care professionals with fewer funding resources, disproportionate clinical care of complex and costly patients, charity care to uninsured and underinsured, and reduced research funding opportunities. Then, they provide a review of some potential solutions to these challenges, including new reimbursement methods, improvements in operational efficiency, price regulation, subsidization of education, improved decision making and communication, utilization of industrial management tools, and increasing internal and external cooperation. Devising solutions to the evolving problems of AHCs is crucial to improving health care delivery in the United States. Most likely, a combination of market, government, and system reforms will be needed to improve the viability of AHCs and assist them in fulfilling their social and organizational missions.

Children and the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act: opportunities and challenges in an evolving system

The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA), passed in 2010, focused primarily on the problems of adults, but the changes in payment for and delivery of care it fosters will likely impact the health care of children. The evolving epidemiology of pediatric illness in the United States has resulted in a relatively small population of medically fragile children dispersed through the country and a large population of children with developmental and behavioral health issues who experience wide degrees of health disparities. Review of previous efforts to change the health care system reveals specific innovations in child health delivery that have been designed to address issues of child health. The ACA is complex and contains some language that improves access to care, quality of care, and the particular needs of the pediatric workforce. Most of the payment models and delivery systems proposed in the ACA, however, were not designed with the needs of children in mind and will need to be adapted to address their needs. To assure that the needs of children are met as systems evolve, child health professionals within and outside academe will need to focus their efforts in clinical care, research, education, and advocacy to incorporate child health programs into changing systems and to prevent unintended harm to systems designed to care for children.

Decreasing the length of residency training: a public policy perspective

It is widely recognized that the United States is going to experience a serious shortage of physicians in the coming years unless the number of physicians completing residency training and entering practice is greatly increased. Members of the academic medicine community have approached this issue by calling on Congress to eliminate the cap that currently limits the number of residency positions that Medicare will support. Simply eliminating the cap, however, will not ensure an adequate supply of physicians. In this commentary the author argues that decreasing the length of training required in core clinical specialties will be required to effectively address the workforce shortage by allowing more residents to be trained in core specialties without greatly increasing the number of training programs and the aggregate amount that Medicare currently spends on graduate medical education.

Medicare Reform and Primary Care Concerns for Future Physicians

The widening income gap between specialists and primary care physicians (PCPs) has spurred many physician associations to reform the current Resource-Based Relative Value Scale fee schedule and sustainable growth rate expenditure target system. Hoping to better represent primary care, the American Association of Family Physicians formed a task force in 2011 to suggest supplements to the Relative Value Update Committee's procedural code recommendations to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. In addition, the predicted shortage of PCPs has caused many medical schools to increase class sizes; the scarcity of PCPs has also spurred the founding of new medical schools. Such measures, however, have not been met with more residency program sites or graduate medical education funding. The present article highlights major Medicare reform strategies and explores several issues affecting the field of primary care, including reimbursement, representation, and residency training.

Educating psychiatry residents in neuropsychiatry and neuroscience

Neuropsychiatry and psychiatric neuroscience should be part of the general psychiatry curriculum so that graduate psychiatrists will be able to allow their patients the benefit of neuroscientifically informed diagnosis and treatment. Current neurology and neuroscience educational requirements for US psychiatry training are reviewed. The draft milestone requirements for clinical neuroscience training as part of the US Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education's Next Accreditation System are also provided. Suggestions for the neuropsychiatric and neuroscience content of psychiatry residency training are made, along with a description of pedagogic methods and resources. Survey data are reviewed indicating agreement by programme directors with the importance of neuroscience training and an increase in the amount of time devoted to this area. Faculty staff development in neuropsychiatry and neuroscience literacy will be needed to provide high quality training in these areas.

Radiology fellowship with a focus on musculoskeletal imaging: current challenges and future directions

OBJECTIVE

Many musculoskeletal fellowships are nonaccredited, leading to heterogeneity of educational experiences. There is no governing body for these nonaccredited fellowships, leaving program content and rules to the program directors' discretion. In addition, imaging fellowships in general currently face many external pressures that challenge their capacity to provide a high-quality education. Federal cuts to Medicare, diminished reimbursement to radiology departments, and pressure for increased accountability exerted by insurance companies and hospitals all place additional stress on fellowship training programs.

CONCLUSION

Only those fellowships providing the highest-quality educational experience will continue to thrive.