BACKGROUND AND OBJECTIVES: The COVID-19 pandemic led to the insti-tution of virtual interviewing for nearly all family medicine residency programs in 2020 and 2021. This paradigm shift challenged the perspectives of family medicine program directors across the United States, in part because of the financial impact on the operations of many residency programs. We sought to investigate program directors' opinions on the 2020-2021 interview season, as well whether future interview season planning would be influenced by the financial outcomes of this season. METHODS: We conducted a cross-sectional survey, as part of the fall 2021 CERA Program Director omnibus online survey. Family medicine program di-rectors were invited by email to participate. We conducted multivariate logis-tic regression of the likelihood of supporting a fully-virtual interviewing model. RESULTS: The module survey response rate was 41.7% (263/631); 91.3% of programs reported conducting a fully-virtual 2020-2021 interview season. Pro-gram directors who reported that the cost savings recouped from virtual ver-sus in-person interviewing could be used for other residency operating costs (32.4%) were almost four times more likely to support moving to a fully -virtu-al interviewing model (odds ratio: 3.94, confidence interval: 1.69-9.18). When compared to a residency program's benefit from meeting and assessing ap-plicants in person, applicants benefitting from less financial burden during a fully-virtual interview season was not seen by responding program directors as a significant reason to remain virtual. CONCLUSIONS: While family medicine residency program directors who re-couped interview expenses during fully-virtual recruiting seasons are more likely to support ongoing, fully-virtual models, financial incentivization did not overall impact support for virtual interviewing among program directors with statisti-cal significance.
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