The American Academy of Sleep Medicine encourages members to contact your U.S. representatives and senators, urging them to co-sponsor federal legislation that has been introduced to increase support for graduate medical education (GME).

In 2015, “The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act” (H.R. 2124 and S. 1148) was introduced in the U.S. House of Representatives and in the Senate. These companion bills would provide a modest increase in Medicare GME support (15,000 positions over five years); require that half of all available positions be used to alleviate shortage specialties; and direct the Government Accountability Office (GAO) to submit a report to Congress on strategies for increasing the number of health professionals from rural, lower income, and under-represented minority communities.

Last March, the “Training Tomorrow’s Doctors Today Act” (H.R. 4774) was introduced in the U.S. House. Similar to The Resident Physician Shortage Reduction Act, it also would increase the number of direct graduate medical education slots. Furthermore, the Act also would enhance accountability and transparency by directing the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to work with medical education stakeholders to establish patient care performance standards that measure the extent of physician training.

As the U.S. population grows older, the demand for physician and other health care services will only continue to increase. However, the U.S. is facing a shortage of 90,000 primary care and specialty physicians by 2025, and almost half of the states are already reporting a physician workforce shortage. Medical schools have responded by increasing enrollment; however, many of these graduates are unable to continue their required training in residency, due to a federally-mandated limit on the number of residency slots supported by Medicare.

Supporting these bills is also essential to the sleep medicine field. Adding 15,000 new GME residency slots and establishing performance standards will allow bright, talented young physicians to enter the sleep field and help alleviate the high demand for sleep medicine care. We need your help to prevent thousands of qualified medical school graduates from being unable to become a licensed physician!

Currently, there are more than 125 total cosponsors for H.R. 2124, and more than a dozen legislators who are cosponsoring S. 1148 and cosponsoring H.R. 4774.


If your representative is a cosponsor of one of these bills, please thank them for championing this cause. For those members of your Congressional delegation who have not yet signed on, please use the AASM template letter to urge your Representative or Senator to cosponsor H.R. 2124, S. 1148 and H.R. 4774.

To learn more about how you can advocate for the field of sleep medicine, visit the AASM Advocacy webpage or contact the AASM at policy@aasm.org.