Residency Funding

Recent CMS actions have resulted in pharmacy residency programs facing funding disallowances, which are retroactive clawbacks of Medicare reimbursement for program operators’ costs. Many of these cases involve arbitrary and inconsistent application of cost-reporting requirements.

Pharmacy residencies are postgraduate training programs that equip pharmacists to meet the challenges of today’s complex healthcare environment. These programs allow pharmacy residents to build clinical judgment and leadership skills; learn to manage and improve the medication-use process; and provide evidence-based, patient-centered medication management as part of an interprofessional care team.

Postgraduate year 1 (PGY1) residencies are prerequisites for positions in many specialties such as solid organ transplantation, clinical pharmacogenomics, psychiatry, infectious diseases, critical care, cardiology, oncology, and pediatrics. Decreasing or weakening the number of available residency positions would severely limit the number of pharmacists available to fill critical patient care roles.

How to Protect Patients – ASHP is Working to:

• Request the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) suspend cost disallowances until the agency provides pharmacy residency programs with technical assistance, including a comprehensive description of what CMS deems to be compliant cost accounting processes and procedures.  
• Engage in litigation efforts by filing amicus briefs when applicable to protect PGY1 residency funding.