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GAO-13-709R 1 (2013-08-15)

handle is hein.gao/gaobaahff0001 and id is 1 raw text is: GAOU.S. GOVERNMENT ACCOUNTABILITY OFFICE 441 G St. N.W. Washington, DC 20548 August 15, 2013 Congressional Requesters Subject: Health Care Workforce: Federally Funded Training Programs in Fiscal Year 2012 A well-trained and diverse health care workforce is essential for providing Americans with access to quality health care services. As part of ensuring a sufficient supply of physicians, nurses, dentists, and other direct care health professionals for the nation, the federal government supports health care workforce training through various efforts.1 These efforts include federal programs that directly train health professionals, award grants or make payments to institutions training health professionals, and provide financial assistance to health professional students through stipends, scholarships, loans, or loan reimbursement. For example, titles VII and VIII of the Public Health Service Act (PHSA) authorize multiple grant and financial assistance programs in order to increase the supply, diversity, and geographic distribution of primary care providers and nurses.2 In addition, primarily through Medicare payments to teaching hospitals, the federal government is also the largest supporter of graduate medical education (GME)-postgraduate residency training programs for physicians and others. More recently, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) reauthorized many of the existing PHSA workforce training programs as well as established several new programs aimed at improving and diversifying the health care workforce.3 To better understand the scope of the federal government's role in health care workforce training, you asked us to provide information on federally funded health care workforce training programs. This report identifies federal programs that supported postsecondary training and education for direct care health professionals in fiscal year 2012, including information about program purpose, funding, and targeted health professionals. To identify these federal programs, we reviewed reports by organizations that have examined health care workforce issues,4 reviewed federal department budgets, searched the Catalog of Federal Domestic Assistance (CFDA),5 reviewed the Fiscal Year 2012 Budget of the United States Government, and reviewed relevant federal laws and regulations. For federal departments identified as having at least one health care workforce training program, we administered a structured request to identify any additional programs and obtain information on each program's purpose, authority, funding obligations, and the number of health professional 'For the purposes of this review, direct care health professionals are those who deliver clinical or rehabilitative care to patients, such as allopathic and osteopathic physicians, nurses, dentists, pharmacists, physician assistants, podiatrists, psychologists, and physical or occupational therapists. 242 U.S.C. §§ 292 - 298d. 3pub. L. No. 111-148, 124 Stat. 119, (2010) as amended by the Health Care and Education Reconciliation Act of 2010, Pub. L. No. 111-152,124 Stat. 1029. 4Specifically, we reviewed reports by the Congressional Research Service, the Institute of Medicine, and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission. 5The CFDA is a government-wide compendium of federal programs that provide assistance or benefits to the American public. GAO-1 3-709R Health Care Workforce Training Programs Page 1

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