Application Period Opens for GME Funding

“We need more investment in primary care,” AAFP Vice President of Medical Education Karen Mitchell M.D., FAAFP, said. “One of the ways to do that is to expand family medicine training, especially in the communities that need it most. This round of funding for expanded resident positions is an opportunity to grow the family medicine workforce.”

Section 126 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2021 authorized 1,000 new Medicare-funded residency positions with a maximum of 200 distributed to qualifying hospitals each year. The first two rounds of residency positions awarded under Section 126 combined yielded about 100 new family medicine residency slots.

At least 10% of the residency positions must be distributed to each of four categories of hospitals, those that

• serve rural areas,
• train more residents than their CMS-funded cap on positions,
• operate in states with new medical schools or additional locations and branches of existing medical schools, and
• serve designated Health Professional Shortage Areas.

CMS will prioritize funding based on hospitals’ HPSA scores, which measures need on a scale of 1 to 25. In the previous round of funding, announced in November 2023, the highest score among 99 hospitals awarded was 21 and the lowest was 14.

The United States is facing an estimated shortage of more than 52,000 primary care physicians by 2025. The AAFP advocated for the appropriate use of Section 126, and continues to call for consistent funding for family medicine GME to ensure that new residency slots address rural and urban imbalances, reduce physician shortages and focus on underserved areas. The AAFP recently wrote to House leadership about primary care priorities, which include multi-year reauthorization of and increased funding for the Teaching Health Centers Graduate Medical Education Program, as well as for Community Health Centers and the National Health Service Corps.

The funding application process and requirements for Section 126 funding, as well as an FAQ, are available on the CMS website.