Upcoming Deadline: Applications for New Medical Education Slots Due March 31, 2022
Hospitals have until March 31, 2022 to apply for up to five new FTE cap slots for distribution in FFY 2023. Further instructions and the application for FTE cap slots is available on the CMS Graduate Medical Education website.
Background
CMS finalized rules on the distribution of 1,000 new resident FTE cap slots over five years (200 per year) under Section 126 of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 (CAA) for hospitals looking to establish or expand residency programs. The additional cap slots will be distributed to hospitals that are included in the following four categories (with at least 10% of slots going to each category):
- Hospitals located in rural areas or that are treated as being in a rural area.
- Hospitals that are training residents over their cap amount.
- Hospitals located in the 35 states (listed in the CAA) with new medical schools or additional locations and branches of existing campuses.
- Hospitals that train residents in a program where at least 50 percent of the residents’ training time occurs at site(s) physically located in (a) geographic Health Professional Shortage Area(s) (HPSA).
HPSA scores will be a key criterion for all four categories, not just category four. Hospitals can find information about the HPSA or HPSAs associated with their training program locations using HRSA’s Search Tool. CMS will prioritize applications by descending HPSA score. When hospitals have the same HPSA score[1], applications are next prioritized for hospitals with fewer than 250 beds.
The next medical education deadline associated with Section 131 of the CAA is July 1, 2022 for hospitals looking to reset their PRAs and/or FTE resident caps (providers with fewer than 1.0 FTE in a cost reporting period beginning before October 1, 1997; or fewer than 3.0 FTEs in a cost reporting period beginning on or after October 1, 1997 and before December 27, 2020). The 7/1/2022 deadline is only for hospitals that believe the published HCRIS data is not accurate, and who want to provide documentation to challenge it. For more information, please see Toyon’s News You Need to Know article here from January 7, 2022.
Please contact Tom Hubner with questions at 888.514.9312, or tom.hubner@toyonassociates.com.
_______
[1] CMS is seeking comment on the dependence of geographic HPSA residents on health services provided outside of their HPSA, and a feasible alternative for potential use in future rulemaking.
