Providence's family medicine residency program is cutting the number of new medical school graduates it recruits annually from 10 to four. The cuts, driven by a decrease in federal funding, will take effect next June, The Spokesman-Review reported July 25.
In addition to the six-slot reduction at Family Medicine Residency Spokane, the Renton, Wash. -based system is ending a sports medicine fellowship, which had one position, and is trimming the size of a translational program for residents entering specialties to eight slots.
The program cuts were primarily driven by a reduction in federal Graduate Medical Education funding and rising costs. Tacoma, Wash.-based MultiCare's plans to reclaim residency slots that were previously allocated to Providence also played a role, leaders said. When MultiCare purchased Deaconess Hospital from Community Health Systems in 2017, it kept CHS' agreement to lend its federal residency funding to Providence.
Providence anticipates the residency reductions will save between $2 million and $3 million annually, Cara Beatty, MD, chief executive of Providence's Clinical Network for East Washington and Montana, told the news outlet.
"It's no surprise to anybody that healthcare funding of all sorts is becoming more challenging," she said. "We’re just really finding that our costs are going up far higher than our revenue across the board; we looked at all kinds of options … Unfortunately, we came to the really hard decision that the least painful way forward was to cut back those numbers of residents in family medicine."
The health system has plans to integrate more advanced practice providers to mitigate any potential disruptions to care access at the teaching center's clinic, Dr. Beatty told Becker's.
"Community members who come to the clinic will still have access to care," she said.
Over a 12-month period ending July 1, family medicine residents and faculty cared for more than 19,000 patients, leaders at the program told the Spokesman-Review.
Providence's family residency program has graduated 375 physicians since it began in 1974. Historically, the majority of resident graduates stay in the region where they trained, but Dr. Beatty said that is beginning to change.
"We are seeing trained doctors return to their home regions more and more," she told Becker's. "It's a significant shift."