By NextBestFitFund more residency slots
Fund more residency positions, prioritizing primary care, psychiatry, and rural sites.
Long lead time; start first.
Review ledgerHow this path connects
Concrete changes if chosen
What would actually have to change in law, agencies, payment rules, or systems.
- Fund more residency slots, prioritizing primary care and rural sites
Effects
Each effect has its own page: the evidence, the case that it is or isn't a real cost, and whom it affects.
- Physician shortage, especially in primary care
Funding additional residency positions directly increases physician supply, with priority for primary care, psychiatry, and rural sites. Residents tend to stay near where they train.
- Longer waits if demand grows faster than capacity
Additional residency positions increase physician supply, including primary care, psychiatry, and rural sites, to address capacity behind waits.
- Takes years, or money up front, before it pays off
Additional residency positions take years before they yield more practicing physicians.
- Raises spending or loosens control over it
Funding additional residency positions is costly per slot.
Who's affected
- Residents of areas with too few health professionals
- Physician shortage, especially in primary care: Physician shortages leave them waiting for appointments.
- Doctors, nurses, and other clinicians
- Physician shortage, especially in primary care: Physician shortages contribute to burnout.
- Health profession students and trainees
- Physician shortage, especially in primary care: Funding additional residency positions directly increases physician supply, with priority for primary care, psychiatry, and rural sites. Residents tend to stay near where they train.
- People with employer coverage
- Longer waits if demand grows faster than capacity: They are seen fastest today and would share one queue with everyone.
- People with ongoing or specialist care needs
- Longer waits if demand grows faster than capacity: They need specialists and procedures most often.
- Specialist clinicians and practices
- Physician shortage, especially in primary care: Scarcity supports incumbent specialists’ pay.
- Taxpayers and public budgets
- Raises spending or loosens control over it: Public budgets pay the added spending.
Where it has been tried
- U.S. 2021 & 2023 laws: Added 1,000 Medicare-funded slots (2021, phased in at up to 200 a year) plus 200 more, half for psychiatry (2023).
- United States: In 2023, CMS awarded 200 new Medicare-funded residency positions to 100 teaching hospitals, with the positions effective July 1.