Who pays the salary for medical residents ...

[slipslidingaway]

???

Why are there so few positions offered in the US? Who pays their salary during residency?

[slipslidingaway]

1. Before we blame the AMA and everyone else we need to see who pays the ...

salaries of residents in the US, where exactly is the bottleneck in the system?

Sure there are so only so many positions in hospitals, but who pays their salaries during residency?

[Recursion]

8. The bottleneck is still medical school, not residency

The AMA limits how many new MDs (the pool from which residents are drawn) there can be, and they haven't increased that number in decades.

Hospitals would happily pay for residents themselves if they were more of them; they get to work them to death for next to nothing.

[dlwickham]

2. don't the hospitals pay the salaries?

aren't they hospital employees during their residency?

[slipslidingaway]

4. My understanding is that it is all ultimately funded by Medicare...

my daughter is paid by the VA. She rotates between an inner city hospital, a private hospital and the VA, but she is paid by the VA. Other residents are paid from the either the private hospital or the inner city hospital who both receive funds from Medicare. They do have additional positions open, but they try and limit the openings to the funds they recieve from Medicare.

Thanks for your reply to a question that needs to be answered.

[procon]

3. Most funding comes from the Department of Health and Human Services

and Medicare that subsidize teaching hospitals for resident training programs. The bigger and more prestigious university hospitals also have additional funding sources. Residency is like on the job training, and the availability of slots are dependent of the amount of funding available. The average salary is around a $50K and includes the usual employee benefits package.

Now, with the sequester cuts and Republicans gleefully cutting everything, especially health services, there are even fewer residency openings; a requirement for most specialties.

[slipslidingaway]

5. Thank you, that is my understanding as well, most salaries are paid from Medicare...

it does not matter what their pay check says or what it says on their white coat, the funding comes from Medicare.

[Princess Turandot]

7. It's more complicated than that...

Medicare does directly pay for resident training costs, but it only pays its share of them. (Resident training costs include more costs than just resident salaries and benefits, but that's neither here nor there.)

The numbers in this simplified example are made up (to make the arithmetic easy for me.)

-The estimated costs per resident in 2016 are set at $100,000 per resident by Medicare.

-Medicare patients at Slipslingaway Hospital make up 25% of inpatient activity.

-For residencies qualifying for reimbursement, Medicare pays the hospital .25 x $100,000, or $25,000 per qualifying residency.

The rest of the costs is paid by the hospital from their other billing revenues. (And if Medicare patients suddenly stopped coming to Slipslingaway Hospital, it would lose the Medicare reimbursement but would still need to pay the residents.)

[slipslidingaway]

6. I rec'd my own thread, IMO this needs to be discussed. n/t