Legislation to reauthorize the funding for the Children's Hospital Graduate Medical Education program is now expected to be considered in a Senate committee when Congress returns after Labor Day.
What's at stake is $330 million in funding to help cover the cost of 5,600 pediatric residencies at 56 free-standing children's hospitals across the country, which train 40% of the nation's pediatricians and 43% of pediatric sub-specialists. A spokes person for one children's hospital, which did not want to be identified, said the funding is necessary to support the training for certain pediatric specialties that remain in short supply. She noted that a five-week wait for an appointment is not unusual for pediatric specialty services in pulmonology, neurology, and endocrinology.
Supporters had hoped that S 958 would pass out of Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions (HELP) this week, so that it could be scheduled for a Senate floor vote early in September. Instead the bill will have a mark-up session in the HELP committee on Sept. 7—just three weeks shy of the expiration of it current appropriation.
The House companion bill, H.R. 1852, passed out of the House Energy and Commerce Committee in late July. A full House vote of that bill was delayed while the Congress debated the debt ceiling.
HealthLeaders Media contacted the HELP offices in an effort to identify a timeline for the Senate bill but staffers declined to comment on a potential time period when S 958 might go before the full Senate. Efforts to reach a spokesperson for the House bill were unsuccessful.
Timing is critical, say advocates, because CHGME funding was cut from the Obama administration's budget for fiscal year 2012, which begins Oct 1. That means Congress would need to act quickly to reauthorize the program and provide an appropriation. The administration reportedly wants to redirect the CHGME funding to train additional primary care physicians.
Although supporters are growing confident of passage of the reauthorization bill, CHGME must still pass muster with the Congressional appropriations committee. There also is concern regarding the role the debt super committee will play in budget negotiations.
Jim Kaufman, vice president for public policy for the National Association of Children's Hospitals, explained that the House and Senate bills will both reauthorize the program for five more years but that as discretionary spending, CHGME funding will still be subject to the annual appropriations process.
Funding for individual hospitals in 2010, the latest year figures are available, ranged from about $51,000 at Children's Specialized Hospital in Mountainside, NJ, to the more than $21 million received by both Children's Hospital of Philadelphia and Boston Children's Hospital.
Amy B. Mansue, president and CEO of Children's Specialized Hospital, said if funding for the program is trimmed or cut that most affected hospitals will try to find a way to maintain their pediatric residency programs. “The biggest loss would be to our patients who would not have access to the specialists who have the skills to help children reach their fullest potential.”
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Margaret Dick Tocknell is a reporter/editor with HealthLeaders Media.
