- The Honorable Robert Menendez
528 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 - The Honorable John Boozman
555 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 - The Honorable Charles Schumer
322 Hart Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510 - The Honorable Susan Collins
413 Dirksen Senate Office Building
Washington, DC 20510
RE: Support of S. 1302, the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act
Dear Majority Leader Schumer and Senators Menendez, Boozman, and Collins:
As the Alliance of Specialty Medicine (Alliance), our mission is to advocate for sound federal health care policy that fosters patient access to the highest quality specialty care. As patient and physician advocates, the Alliance writes in support of your legislation, S. 1302, the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act, which would increase the number of Graduate Medical Education (GME) residency positions an additional 2,000 residency positions each year for seven years to tackle the severe physician manpower shortage.
We thank Congress for taking the first steps to address this issue by approving 1,000 new Medicare-supported GME slots in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 and 200 additional positions in the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2023. However, according to the Association of American Medical Colleges (AAMC), the United States will face a shortage of up to 124,000 physicians by 2034. While the Alliance acknowledges the need to increase the number of available primary care providers, we note that specialty shortages will be particularly large, including neurosurgeons, urologists, cardiologists, gastroenterologists, rheumatologists, ophthalmologists, plastic and reconstructive surgeons, dermatologic surgeons, orthopaedic surgeons, osteopathic surgeons, and general surgeons. Given the increased demand created for
Click here to read the full Neurosurgery Joins Alliance in Supporting Senate Bill to Increase GME Funding.
