At a time of acute physician shortage, particularly a shortage of radiologists, the American College of Radiology (ACR) is requesting that Congress re-introduce legislation from the last Congressional term to address the shortage. The ACR believes the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act, which would increase the number of federally supported medical residency positions through graduate medical education (GME) funding by 2,000 annually for seven years, thus providing for 14,000 new GME-funded residency slots by FY 2032, would be a better legislative vehicle to address the shortages. That legislation failed to pass in the last Congress.

In its letter to Senators Bill Cassidy, MD (R-LA), Catherine Cortez Masto (D-NV), John Cornyn (R-TX) and Michael Bennet (D-CO), ACR requests these senators to go further than their current draft legislation to address the physician shortage. Senators Cassidy, Cortez Masto, Cornyn and Bennett have proposed to increase the supply of physicians with an additional 5,000 residency positions total between federal fiscal years 2027-2031. ACR is concerned that only 5,000 new residency slots by FY 2031 will fall far short of the need for more radiologists and urges support for the larger number of 14,000 new supported slots after seven years, as proposed in the Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act.

The ACR reminded the senators of the projected physician shortage of up to 86,000 physicians by 2036. “Because of the central role that imaging and minimally invasive image guided therapies play in virtually every significant episode of care, shortages within the field of radiology are especially problematic.” Without a dramatic increase in the numbers of radiologists trained when the number and complexity of exams and procedures increases, ACR believes that “patients may receive delayed diagnoses, and potential[ly] unnecessary interventions— driving up health care costs for both individuals and the Medicare program.”

The shortage of physicians – particularly the shortage of radiologists – is real. The biggest challenge for my radiology group clients today is the recruitment and retention of new radiologists. I hope Congress will take this challenge seriously and agree to dramatically increase the number of federally supported medical residency positions.