November 22,
2024By Physicians for a Healthy California CalMedForce
Physicians for a Healthy California (PHC) announced more than $25 million in CalMedForce awards across the state to support new and existing residency positions to help grow the California physician workforce.
This seventh round of CalMedForce funding, generated by the voter-approved Proposition 56 tobacco tax of 2016 and administered by PHC, will support 184 residency positions in 142 graduate medical education (GME) programs at hospitals and clinics that provide care to medically underserved groups and communities.
“The continued increase in applications over the last seven years demonstrates the high demand and need for graduate medical education funding in California to close our physician shortage gap,” said PHC President and CEO Lupe Alonzo-Diaz, MPA. “CalMedForce funds provide essential support to residency programs to continue to grow the physician workforce and ensure access to care for all Californians.”
PHC, in partnership with the University of California (UC), established the CalMedForce grant program to help address California’s physician shortage. UC is the designated recipient of Proposition 56 funding and has contracted with PHC to administer CalMedForce. All accredited residency programs in the state that meet grant eligibility guidelines are eligible to apply for funding. Of this year’s CalMedForce awardees, 25 of the 142 awarded GME programs are affiliated with UC.
“The costs and demands to sustain, retain, and expand accredited graduate medical education programs have increased. Additional resources are needed to strengthen and grow the health care workforce of California, particularly for medically underserved groups and communities,” said Deena McRae, M.D., Associate Vice President for Academic Health Sciences in the UC Office of the President. “Funding of these residency programs helps the state take critical steps towards improving access to health care for all Californians across the state and achieving health equity.”
Even though the CalMedForce program endured a significant reduction in funding in the FY 2024-25 Budget Act, leading to an immediate decrease in grant support for GME programs statewide, this application cycle reinforced the high demand and need for GME funding across California. However, at least temporarily, the reduction results in fewer physicians serving Medi-Cal patients, fewer providers in health professional shortage areas, and a decrease in the number of physicians who train and remain in California. (California has the highest post-residency physician retention rate in the nation, with 78% of residents who train here staying to practice in California after residency.)
This cycle marks the largest applicant pool to date, with 173 programs requesting over $137 million in funding to support 773 resident positions.
To put the growing physician shortage into perspective, the number of physicians completing residencies in California has not kept up with the number of primary care physicians retiring. The California Future Health Workforce Commission estimates California will have a 4,100-clinician shortfall by 2030.
CalMedForce is committed to supporting as many GME programs as possible to address California's physician shortage. Given the reduced funding this cycle, CalMedForce explored various strategies to maximize impact, including reduced award amounts and employing other methodologies to balance breadth and depth. This approach allowed us to stretch resources across more programs while maintaining essential support where needed most.
To date, CalMedForce has awarded over $251.7 million for 780 grants to 180 GME programs across California to retain and expand residency slots in primary care (family medicine, internal medicine, pediatrics, and obstetrics and gynecology) and emergency medicine.
For more information, visit CalMedForce.org. (@PHCdocs / #CalMedForce)