The financial status of departments of family medicine at US medical schools

Background: This report examined the financial health of departments of fam ily medicine in US allopathic medical schools. Methods: We conducted a surv ey of departments of family medicine at US medical schools. using academic year 1997-1998 as the index year: A total of 52 (46%) of medical schools th at have a department of family medicine responded to the survey. The survey ? examined sources of revenue and categories of expenditures. Analysis asse ssed the overall financial status of departments at that period of time. Re sults: Responding departments of family medicine received 32% of their find ing from state or university sources and an additional 32% of funding from clinical services. Grants and hospital support comprised another 17% each. Departments in public institutions received higher levels of support from h ospitals (22% of revenue versus 8% for private schools). The overall balanc e sheets for departments of family medicine showed that 56% of departments have financial reserves, while 19% had no reserves but no debt. Twenty-five percent of all departments were in debt, including 2% with debt exceeding $1 million. Conclusions: The majority of departments of family medicine rem ain fiscally healthy! but these departments are dependent on funds from sta te and medical school sources. A substantial proportion of departments are in debt. Lower levels of grant support and the difficulty in increasing cli nical revenue may create future funding problems for primary care faculty a s medical schools increase dependence on these sources of income.