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F I S C A L I M P A C T R E P O R T

SPONSOR R. Martinez

ORIGINAL DATE

LAST UPDATED

01/31/08

HB 596

SHORT TITLE Grant & Hidalgo Physician Training

SB

ANALYST Geisler

APPROPRIATION (dollars in thousands)

Appropriation

Recurring

or Non-Rec

Fund

Affected

FY08

FY09

$175.0

Recurring

General Fund

(Parenthesis ( ) Indicate Expenditure Decreases)

Relates to HB 158

SOURCES OF INFORMATION

LFC Files

Responses Received From

Department of Health (DOH)

Health Policy Commission (HPC)

SUMMARY

Synopsis of Bill

House Bill 596 appropriates $175,000 from the general fund to the Department of Health (DOH)

for expenditure in FY 2009 for training and development of primary care physicians in Grant and

Hidalgo Counties. Any unexpended balance remaining at the end of FY 2009 would revert to

the general fund.

FISCAL IMPLICATIONS

The additional funding in HB 596 is not a part of DOH’s FY09 executive budget request. The

DOH base budget for FY09 has $73,000 for training for primary care physicians (residents) in

southwestern New Mexico.

SIGNIFICANT ISSUES

HB 596 would provide funding for training and related services to develop primary care

physicians in Grant and Hidalgo Counties, both classified as Health Professional Shortage Areas

House Bill 596 – Page

2

(HPSAs), where an important percentage of the population resides in underserved rural areas.

Health professionals typically work in areas similar to where they are trained, so the placement

of medical students and residents Southwestern New Mexico is an effective approach to recruit

and retain physicians in a chronically underserved area.

Hidalgo Medical Services, a community-based primary care center operating in Grant and

Hidalgo Counties, currently accepts a limited number of placements of primary care residents

within their operations. In general, the cost of residency training is mostly underwritten by

Graduate Medical Education (GME) payments received by training institutions from the

Medicare and Medicaid programs. These payments cannot easily be used to support the costs of

outplacements at locations, such as those of Hidalgo Medical Services. Other funds are required

to offset both resident compensation, travel expenses and local supervision and instruction. This

appropriation would permit a more routine training and placement of medical residents in Grant

and Hidalgo Counties.

The Health Policy Commissioners at their January, 2008 meeting endorsed this bill. With half of

the physicians in Grant County over the age of 55, the county will be needing replacement

physicians in the near future.

UNM Health Sciences Center information indicates that physicians often go into practice in

proximity to where they received their training. HB 596 promotes that concept with the

appropriation directed towards training programs in Grant and Hidalgo counties.

RELATIONSHIP

HB 596 is related to HB 158, which would provide an appropriation of $350,000 for a primary

care residency program in Southwestern New Mexico.

GG/bb