GME Sample Letter

Dear Senator/Representative _____________,

I am writing to request that you push for legislation to reverse the reduction in the Indirect Medical Education (IME) factor. The passage of "The American Hospital Preservation Act" (S 899/HR 1710) is needed to reverse the losses teaching hospitals have experienced from the reduction in IME.

At my institution, ***INSERT WHAT YOUR INSTITUTION’S SITUATION IS HERE***

As you know, the BBA mandated a 29% cut in Medicare Indirect Medical Education (IME) funding over 4 years. IME funds help cover the systematically higher costs that teaching hospitals incur. These costs are a necessary component of training physicians to serve both Medicare beneficiaries and the general population. In an attempt to mitigate the drastic IME cuts, Congress postponed the implementation of the full 29% IME cut, but time has now run out.

IME funds are needed to help hospitals provide important services as well as attract, retain, and train their health care workforce. Legislation would help protect teaching hospitals’ financial stability and allow these institutions to provide high quality care to their communities while training the next generation of physicians. Teaching hospitals across the country need this additional relief. Reports of hospitals scaling back programs and services, or even closing entire departments, have become all too common.

Reversing the current IME levels is critical to sustaining teaching hospitals' important mission of training future physicians and providing the medical services severely ill patients needs.

Again, I hope you will be able to cosponsor and push this legislation forward. We need it to be enacted immediately.

Sincerely,