Health care reform and radiology education.

摘要

As we read the headlines of continued disagreement in Washington over the sweeping provisions of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) and the attempts of split congressional leadership to delete, modify, or improve those provisions, the spotlight has been cast on issues of patient access, mandatory insurance coverage, and the need to curtail escalating costs of health care. There have been no headlines identifying the impact of PPACA and its side effects on medical education, particularly the education of radiology residents. As an organization that represents the entire spectrum of radiologic practice, the ACR has a responsibility to its membership to define the impact of PPACA on all facets of the specialty and to create strategies beneficial to those facets either direcdy or indirecdy. Within the massive legislation, there are some provisions direcdy afFecting graduate medical education. There is a provision that eliminates some of the restrictive rules and timekeeping requirements for residents. Residents who spend time in nonprovider settings will have that time counted if the hospital incurs the cost of stipends and resident fringe benefits during that time. Another provision beneficially changes the rules for counting resident time for didactic time, research time, vacation, and sick leave. Still other provisions allow for the redistribution of residency slots after hospitals close.