Care law funding UAMS spots

$900,000 covering half of cost for 6 medical residencies

Funding made available under the 2010 federal health care law is supporting six family-medicine residency positions at the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, including two residents who started their training on July 1, UAMS officials said this week.

The $900,000 grant from the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program will pay about half the costs for one year associated with the positions, which are all at UAMS West in Fort Smith, said Mark Mengel, vice chancellor for UAMS Regional Programs.

"It's a pretty good start," he said.

The costs include salaries and benefits for residents and teaching expenses. In addition to the grant, money supporting the positions comes from patient revenue and state tax dollars, Mengel said.

Mengel said the money will help alleviate a shortage of primary-care doctors in the state. With more Arkansans gaining insurance coverage under the federal health care law and the state's population growing older, "the need is only getting greater," he said.

"You just need a lot of family doctors," he said.

About 50 family doctors complete their postgraduate training at regional UAMS programs each year, and 75 percent of them stay in the state to begin their practice, Mengel said.

UAMS West is among 60 health centers in 24 states that will share in a total of $83.4 million in grants for residency positions under the Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education program during the 2014-15 academic year, according to a news release from the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services.

The money will increase the number of resident positions funded under the program nationwide by more than 200, to about 550, according to the release.

In Arkansas, the funding has allowed UAMS West to increase its residency positions from 24 to 30. The regional center received $300,000 to help pay for two positions in the 2012-13 academic year. The next year, the center received $600,000 to continue the first two positions for an additional year and add two more positions.

The funding announced this week will allow the center to continue the four positions for an additional year and add two new positions.

The federal grant program is set to end Sept. 30, 2015. At that point, four of the UAMS West residents would not yet have completed the three-year training program.

If the funding is not renewed, UAMS officials would look for another source of funding to allow the residents to complete their training, Mengel said.

"The residents who have been integrated will continue for all three years," he said. "We're not going to drop them in midstream."

But without grant money, UAMS may not be able to replace residents whose positions were funded by the grant after those residents complete the program, Don Heard, director of UAMS West, said.

Across the state, the UAMS has 787 residents, including 150 who work in regional programs in Fort Smith, Fayetteville, Texarkana, Jonesboro, Pine Bluff and Magnolia.

Money for the residency positions comes from Medicare funds distributed to hospitals, clinical revenue and state tax dollars, Mengel said.

At the Fort Smith program, residents, under the supervision of faculty members, work at Sparks Regional Medical Center, a UAMS family clinic and specialty clinics.

Each year, the residents handle about 35,000 outpatient visits and 15,000 hospital patient visits and deliver 300 to 400 babies, Heard said.

"We're very pleased to have" the grant funds, Heard said. "It is a significant benefit to our program and for UAMS."

A Section on 07/09/2014

Upcoming Events