A new report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) discusses how Medicare sets caps on both of its types of physician graduate medical education (GME) payments (direct and indirect) to teaching hospitals. Caps on these payments determine the number of physician trainees known as residents that each payment type supports. Hospitals can use other sources of funds to train more residents than these caps. Medicare data show that in 2018, 70% of hospitals were over one or both caps on Medicare-funded residents, and 20% of these facilities were under one or both caps.

The report can be obtained at https://www.gao.gov/assets/gao-21-391.pdf.