David J. Skorton, MD, president and CEO of the AAMC (Association of American Medical Colleges), issued the following statement on regulatory waivers and rule changes released by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS):
“The AAMC thanks CMS for hearing our concerns and providing additional regulatory relief and flexibility to the health care system. These changes will increase the ability of the nation’s teaching hospitals and academic physicians to expand vital care to patients on the frontlines of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Additionally, these critical regulatory changes will remove barriers to care and improve access for patients by allowing teaching hospitals to increase surge capacity without being penalized, relocate outpatient clinics to better serve their communities, and more efficiently deploy the nation's health care workforce by clearing a path for medical residents to support community hospitals with workforce needs.
We look forward to continuing to work with CMS and the administration to ensure that the nation’s teaching hospitals are able to provide crucial care to communities around the country during this unprecedented national emergency.”
The Association of American Medical Colleges is a not-for-profit association dedicated to transforming health care through innovative medical education, cutting-edge patient care, and groundbreaking medical research. Its members comprise all 155 accredited U.S. and 17 accredited Canadian medical schools; nearly 400 major teaching hospitals and health systems, including 51 Department of Veterans Affairs medical centers; and more than 80 academic societies. Through these institutions and organizations, the AAMC serves the leaders of America’s medical schools and teaching hospitals and their 173,000 faculty members, 89,000 medical students, 129,000 resident physicians, and more than 60,000 graduate students and postdoctoral researchers in the biomedical sciences. Additional information about the AAMC and its member medical schools and teaching hospitals is available at www.aamc.org.