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For Immediate Release
August 6, 2001

For Further Information
Pamela Ingham
(212) 308-1414

HUTCHINSON PROPOSES INCENTIVES FOR IMPROVEMENTS IN GERIATRIC CARE

New York, NY- Senator Tim Hutchinson, (R-AR) introduced legislation today aimed at improving health care for older Americans. The bill seeks to expand upon the existing means of training geriatrician by attracting medical professionals and students to the study of geriatrics with added funding, fellowships, and recognition of achievement.

The number of Americans past the age of 65 will reportedly double in less than thirty years, presenting an unprecedented challenge to the nation's health care system. The shortage of geriatricians across the county has been widely reported, and the new legislation is in keeping with the exceeding concern on the part of legislators to avert a crisis in the coming decades.

The first component of Hutchinson's bill calls for increases in the number of Geriatric Academic Career Awards (GACA) for qualified health care professionals at every accredited medical school in the United States. The current awards have been quite successful in attracting mid-level academicians. It is hoped that these awards, which will be open to board certified internists with geriatric fellowship training and a junior faculty position at an accredited medical school, will promote the career development of those with a proven devotion to geriatric care, while strengthening institutions' commitment to geriatrics in the process. According to the bill, recipients of GACA will receive $70,000 for fiscal year 2002, with the amount adjusted for inflation in the years ahead, to enhance their skills and engage in research that will develop preventive, curative, and palliative treatments for age-related health problems.

Hutchinson also seeks to strip away the Graduate Medical Education (GME) Cap that became law in 1997 as a result of the Balanced Budget Act. The GME cap has been cited as particularly damaging to the field of geriatrics, driving medical students away at the time they are needed most.

The new bill will also overturn a 1998 provision that resulted in funding reductions for a second year of payments to fellowships in the second year of medical school, based on a reduction in training and a change in Board eligibility requirements. The changes would require the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to fund the second year in spite of these changes.

"The American Geriatrics Society fully supports the efforts of Senator Hutchinson," said Linda Hiddemen Barondess, Executive Vice President of the AGS. "The current shortage of qualified geriatricians in the U.S. is alarming. Removing obstacles that stand in the way of improvements in geriatric care will help to assure that older Americans receive the care they need in the decades to come."

Founded in 1942, the American Geriatrics Society (AGS) is a nationwide, not-for-profit association of geriatrics health care professionals dedicated to improving the health, independence and quality of life of all older people. The society supports this mission in many ways through activities in: clinical practice; professional education on the clinical care of older people; research; public education and information; public policy efforts; and by collaborative relationships with other organizations.