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Recent regulatory changes in healthcare legislation of the past few years, and HR 133, provide rural teaching hospitals unprecedented pathways to ease the shortages they face.

Teaching hospitals interested in expanding their IME and DME cap slots will have the opportunity to apply for the cap of two recently closed hospitals, Westlake Community Hospital (Melrose Park, IL) and Astria Regional Medical Center (Yakima, WA). Both hospitals have closed their facilities, leaving behind both IME and DGME cap during the process.

When starting Graduate Medical Education (GME) programs, it is imperative to have secure the proper funding in order to ensure the sustainability and evaluate financial support of the GME. Medicare GME reimbursement is the primary source of funding for hospitals throughout the country and is comprised mainly of Direct Graduate Medical Education (DGME) payments and Indirect Medical Education (IME) payments....

Due to the COVID-19 public health emergency, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is permitting hospitals to submit new and/or amended Medicare Graduate Medical Education (GME) Affiliation Agreements (MGAAs) to CMS and the Medicare Administrative Contractors (MACs) by January 1st, 2021. This updated deadline is an extension of the July 1st, 2020 deadline for new MGAAs, as well as...

The implications of resident rotations to a Non-Teaching Hospital affect both the full-time equivalent (FTE) cap building period and Medicare payments of the hospital. These implications are controlled by a number of factors, such as the accreditation status (new or existing) of the Non-Teaching Hospital that is hosting rotating residents. Residents coming from a newly accredited ACGME program can...

The financial world is already a complex area for most people, then we add Graduate Medical Education (GME) into the mix of things and now we have a lot of moving parts. The GME department is a vast ocean of moving parts and we are going to look at the surface of what residents need to know about GME finance. The GME office and its leaders are looking at the financials every month to make sure that...

For a hospital to receive funding through Medicare Graduate Medicare Education (GME) payments, a teaching hospital must accept a resident rotating from an approved program, or have an approved residency program by one of the accrediting bodies, such as the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). These Medicare GME payments are provided to teaching hospitals to cover Medicare’s...

Is your hospital classified as Urban? Rural? Urban, but could possibly be classified as rural? Knowing the difference between how urban and rural hospitals build FTE cap could be the equivalent of millions of dollars of revenue. So, in this post, we are going to make sure you understand the differences in how urban and rural hospitals build FTE cap.

CMS released additional interim rulings on April 30th answering several questions posed by Academic Medical Centers, Universities and Teaching Hospitals over the last six weeks regarding temporary bed increases and rotation schedule changes due to the COVID-19 pandemic health event (PHE).

With the speed of change coming from CMS and all other entities, the fact that CMS delayed the filing deadlines of three cost report due dates seems like 'old news' by now. As a reminder, CMS authorized the following reporting delays

Two big press releases came out this week with potential implications for CMS Cost Reporting. The first from the ACGME cautioned institutions who wished to start recently MATCHED Residents/Fellows ahead of regular programming. In its March 28th Statement, the ACGME warned "there are serious ramifications to early appointment" from a financial perspective. The second, from CMS released on March 30th...