The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Jan 31 released three rounds of awardees of resident cap increases through the closed hospital residency slot redistribution program under Section 5506 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA, P.L. 111-148 and P.L. 111-152).
CMS redistributed 45.32 Direct Graduate Medical Education (DGME) slots and 39.87 Indirect Medical Education (IME) slots from three closed hospitals: Pacific Hospital of Long Beach, CA; Huey P. Long Medical Center in Pineville, LA; and St. Joseph’s Hospital in Philadelphia, PA. Applications for Rounds 8, 9, and 10 were due Oct. 31, 2016. These slots were awarded to five hospitals:
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For Round 8, CMS awarded 25.92 DGME slots and 20.47 IME slots to College Medical Center in Long Beach, CA.
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For Round 9, CMS awarded 4.00 DGME and 4.00 IME slots to Rapides Regional Medical Center in Alexandria, LA, and 7.04 DGME and 7.04 IME slots to Our Lady of the Lake Regional Medical Center in Baton Rouge, LA; and
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For Round 10, CMS awarded 5.88 DGME and 5.88 IME slots to Aria Health and 2.48 DGME and 2.48 IME slots to Abington Memorial Hospital, both in Philadelphia.
Hospitals in the same geographic region as the closed hospital received priority for that closed hospital’s slots. CMS also gave preference in distributing these permanent slots to hospitals that:
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Assumed an entire program from the closed hospital;
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Received slots from the closed hospital under a GME affiliation agreement and would use the slots to continue to train at least the number of residents they had trained under the affiliation agreement; and
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Took residents displaced by the hospital closure and would continue to train residents in the same programs as the displaced residents, even after the displaced residents completed their training.