Hospitals hope reforms bring more money for teaching - Kansas City Business Journal:

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The area’s teaching facilities include both hospitals, whicy are affiliated with the , and The , whicnh trains residents from the . Medicare and Medicaidc reimburse teaching hospitals for direct and indirect costss associatedwith instruction. Several changes during the pastseverakl years, legislative and have limited payments to teaching For instance, a 1997 budget bill capped the numberf of residents Medicare would help finance. KU Hospitaol expanded its residencyprogram anyway, officialas said. Its Medicare cap is 259, but it had 291 residentsw in 2007, costing about $1.
4 Meanwhile, advocates such as the in Washington are hopinf to kill a proposed Bush administration rule that wouldr eliminate federal Medicaid help for the direct costs of training Proposals like this and the reductions already in place put “immense financial pressurew on these institutions to continue to do the missiones they are set out to do,” said Karem Fisher, senior director of healthj care affairs for the association. “Clearly, medical education is going to have to be a key componeng of any healthcare reform,” KU Hospital CFO Scotft Glasrud said.
“Because if you want to change the way healtn care operateslong term, you’re going to have to do it on the front end when physiciane are being trained. And so, to me, it’sa shortsighted not to be fully fundinmedical education.” According to Truman, cuts in Medicarer education funds have cost it a total of abou $700,000 in the past five years. Truman CEO John Bluforxd said increased medical education financing would provide a quick infusion of moneyt tothe cash-strapped operation. “It’s not contingent or dependent on patients coming throughyour door,” he said.
“Those are just enhanceed payments that will come with the existinfg volume wealready have.”