ASHP has been sounding the alarm about threats to residency funding since 2019 when the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) began clawing back Medicare funding from postgraduate year 1 (PGY1) residency programs, particularly those residencies hosted by multihospital health systems.

In 2019, CMS suddenly began enforcing new and confusing requirements that arbitrarily disallowed funding for residency-related activities, such as off-site clinical rotations at other hospitals within a health system, the use of a health system’s name on a pharmacy residency program, and the use of shared human resources and payroll across a health system.

The Rebuild America’s Health Care Schools Act of 2024 (S. 5397/H.R. 10225) would clarify the requirements that hospitals and health systems must meet to receive Medicare reimbursement for operating healthcare residency programs, including pharmacy PGY1 programs. Importantly, the legislation would also require CMS to repay the money it took back from residency programs over the last six years.

Introduced by Senators Amy Klobuchar (D-MN) and Thom Tillis (R-NC) and Representatives Darin LaHood (R-IL), Angie Craig (D-MN), and Michelle Fischbach (R-MN), this new bill represents an important step forward in our advocacy. Please urge your members of Congress to pass this legislation.

We are grateful to these members of Congress who have taken up our cause to help protect pharmacy residency programs. Over the last six years, our advocacy has included multiple meetings with the Department of Health and Human Services and CMS staff, filing a friend-of-the-court brief in support of the Medical University of South Carolina’s lawsuit against CMS, and multiple visits to Capitol Hill to advocate for action.

In September, ASHP members joined us in Washington, D.C., to press Congress on this issue as part of ASHP’s Legislative Day. We also developed a residency audit toolkit to help programs complete a successful CMS audit.

Our persistence on this issue reflects the importance of residency programs, which are essential to performing many patient care services and are required for positions within our specialties such as solid organ transplant, psychiatry, substance use disorder, oncology, and others.

We have spent nearly 50 years building a strong pharmacy residency system in this country and refuse to stand by while these vital programs risk losing the funding they need to train pharmacists to meet critical patient care needs.

Our patients deserve better. Please help us advocate for this legislation. Contact your members of Congress to emphasize the importance of protecting pharmacy residency programs, and use ASHP’s action alert to email your members of Congress today.

Thank you for all you do for your patients and our profession.

Sincerely,

Paul

Posted on November 22, 2024