FP Report -- December 1999
AAFP has wins in Congress on Title VII, GME, AHCPR
Chalk up three legislative victories for the Academy.
On Nov. 18 and 19, Congress passed measures that bode well for the specialty in three areas: Title VII, graduate medical education, and the Agency for Health Care Policy and Research.
Title VII. Family practice training programs supported under Section 747 of Title VII will have slightly reduced funding next year, compared with the $50.5 million budgeted for 1999. President Bill Clinton had called for zero funding for Section 747, so the Academy lobbied extensively to maintain support close to status quo.
Exact dollar amounts for Title VII were not known at press time. Congress approved funding levels like those of 1999 with a catch: an across-the-board 0.38 percent cut. It will affect discretionary funding (including Title VII), not Medicare and Medicaid.
GME technical amendments. The Academy won some but not all of the technical corrections the specialty wanted in the Balanced Budget Act of 1997. Progress report:
- Hospitals in rural areas may increase the cap on their number of residents by 30 percent.
- Urban hospitals with new, separately accredited rural training tracks may receive direct and indirect GME payments for cost-reporting periods after April 1. This provision allows the cap on rural training tracks to be lifted.
- Hospitals with residents on leaves of absence in 1996 will have their indirect medical education funding restored for then and now.
- Indirect GME payments will be frozen at 6.5 percent through fiscal year 2000, cut to 6.25 percent in 2001, and set at 5.5 percent in 2002 and following years. The Academy supported these provisions; some congressional proposals were lower.
AHCPR. A reauthorization bill confirms the establishment of AHCPR's already existing Center for Primary Care Research and outlines research the center should support. Congress also hiked AHCPR funding from $172.8 million in 1999 to $205 million in 2000. The Academy championed the reauthorization provisions and the escalation in funds.
FP Report is published by the AAFP News Department. Copyright © 1999 by American Academy of Family Physicians.
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