Grassley Law Brings More Medical Residency Positions to Iowa

Grassley Law Brings More Medical Residency Positions to Iowa

CMS allocated additional permanent residency slots for Iowa hospitals and patients

WASHINGTON - Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today announced Iowa Methodist Medical Center (UnityPoint) will receive Medicare funds to cover additional graduate medical education (GME) residency positions in emergency medicine. The positions are a result of a 2020 law Grassley championed to support Iowa's growing health care workforce needs. This is the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS)'s third round of residency funding; Iowa has been awarded nearly 12 permanent additional GME residency positions thus far.

"During my 99 county meetings across Iowa, I hear from both patients and health care professionals who say our state's medical workforce needs support. Iowa especially needs more emergency room doctors in our rural communities," Grassley said. "I'm glad to see more Iowans will benefit from my efforts to provide for their health care needs."

"The additional Medicare-funded residency slots helps address critical physician shortages here in Iowa and helps ensure Iowans continue to have access to high quality health care in their local community. Our programs consistently produce physicians and surgeons that remain in Iowa to serve Iowans. We appreciate Senator Grassley's continued work on this issue," said Dr. William J. Yost, Chief Academic Officer and Vice President of Medical Education and Research at Iowa Methodist Medical Center.

Below is an overview of GME residency positions CMS has awarded to Iowa hospitals:

Background

While chairing the Senate Finance Committee, Grassley in 2020 worked to add 1,000 additional Medicare-funded GME residency positions nationwide to strengthen America's health care workforce - particularly in rural and underserved communities. This was the largest increase in Medicare-funded residency positions in over 25 years.

Following further Grassley oversight, CMS confirmed it intends to meet the 10 percent rural hospital distribution threshold in the overall distribution of 1,000 residency positions. Grassley highlighted the importance of distributing medical residency positions to rural areas during a May 2024 Finance Committee hearing.

-30-

• Print
• Email
• Like
• Tweet