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  • May 8, 2026 at 12:27 pm #9016
    Helen Anderson
    Participant

    Has anyone had a successful complement increase through ACGME? We were just denied, and my PD would love to see an example of a letter/application that was submitted and approved.

    And if you’re submitting a complement increase request soon, I just met with an ACGME review committee executive director and learned a couple of things you DON’T want to include with your request. Things we wish we knew before!

    Thanks,

    Helen Anderson

    University of Utah

    helen.anderson@hsc.utah.edu

    May 11, 2026 at 11:46 am #9017
    Laurel Lewis
    Keymaster

    HI Helen,

    We are planning to apply for a complement increase soon, so I would really appreciate any tips or insights you can share!  Als0, I didn’t know we could meet with the ACGME review committee executive director!!  Who was that and maybe we can invite them to speak during the ACGME session at the ARCOS conference in Dallas???

    Thanks,

    ~Laurel

     

    May 11, 2026 at 11:56 am #9018
    Nikki Rives
    Participant

    We are also about to apply for an increase for fellowship and residency and would love to know any important information you have

    Nikki

    nrives@usf.edu

    May 11, 2026 at 12:04 pm #9019
    Karen Darvill
    Participant

    We are too! Please share

    Karen

    Karen.Darvill@advocatehealth.org

    May 11, 2026 at 12:14 pm #9020
    Anna Bingham
    Participant

    Hi!

    We at Baylor University Medical Center in Dallas received an increase in complement last year!  Happy to share our letter! I will say it was denied the first time but the second time we got it. We also cleared all our old areas of concern, and I believe we had one citation that we cleared as well.

    • This reply was modified 2 weeks, 6 days ago by Anna Bingham.
    May 11, 2026 at 12:28 pm #9022
    Michelle Farmer
    Participant

    We also will be applying for a complement increase for two of our programs this fall. I would appreciate hearing about people’s experience/ advice regarding the process!

    May 11, 2026 at 12:49 pm #9024
    Angela Weiss
    Participant

    We also will be applying for a complement increase at University of Washington and would appreciate seeing a successful application letter as well.

    Thank you!

     

    May 11, 2026 at 12:53 pm #9025
    Angela Weiss
    Participant

    Laurel: Agree this would be an excellent topic for ARCOS In Dallas.

    May 11, 2026 at 1:01 pm #9026
    Cindy Thompson
    Participant

    I received an increase in complement last year. I have already shared my major changes and educational rationale with Helen, and I would be happy to share them with others as well.

    It is a little difficult to send the document itself because everything is posted in ADS, and when the document is printed or saved, the text boxes do not expand to show all of the content.

    I would suggest reviewing the Review Committee Dates on ACGME’s website, particularly the agenda closing dates for the meetings, so that you do not miss any deadlines. I would also recommend reviewing the documentation related to requests for changes in resident or fellow complement.

    Our biggest obstacle during the process was obtaining institutional procedural data.

    Happy to answer any other questions you may have.  cthompson@hsc.wuv.edu

    Cindy

    May 11, 2026 at 1:03 pm #9027
    Cindy Thompson
    Participant

    I received an increase in complement last year. I have already shared my major changes and educational rationale with Helen, and I would be happy to share them with others as well.

    It is a little difficult to send the document itself because everything is posted in ADS, and when the document is printed or saved, the text boxes do not expand to show all of the content.

    I would suggest reviewing the Review Committee Dates on ACGME’s website, particularly the agenda closing dates for the meetings, so that you do not miss any deadlines. I would also recommend reviewing the documentation related to requests for changes in resident or fellow complement.

    Our biggest obstacle during the process was obtaining institutional procedural data.

    Happy to answer any other questions you may have.  – cthompson@hsc.wvu.edu

    Cindy

    May 11, 2026 at 1:57 pm #9028
    Helen Anderson
    Participant

    Thanks, everyone! I will definitely share the info, but I’m prepping for CCC/PEC tonight. It’s been super helpful to get the data for successful increases so that we can share it with our committee today. I will add a post tomorrow to share what we learned from ACGME.

    The Orthopaedic Surgery RC Executive Director is Kristen Ward Hirsch (kwardhirsch@acgme.org).

    May 11, 2026 at 4:06 pm #9029
    Laurel Lewis
    Keymaster

    Oh, right, I guess I read that wrong.  I thought you spoke to one of the chairs or other members of the review committee.  We already have Kristen speak at the conference.  But also good to know that this is a topic we can ask her to expand upon and she has the information to respond, too.

     

    May 12, 2026 at 6:11 pm #9030
    Shawna Hook-Held
    Participant

    We are hoping to apply this year, but are facing a lot of hurdles internally with our Director of Business Operations who has been cagey with finances. This is the same DBO who has been a challenge to me in the past so….

    May 19, 2026 at 5:39 pm #9031
    Helen Anderson
    Participant

    This community is THE BEST! Many thanks to those who shared their successful and denied experiences with me. I compiled the attached table and hope it helps all of us in our next ACGME Complement Increase Application. This document hasn’t been approved by ACGME, so please rely on your best judgement.

    FYI – Our main reasons for denial was a new hospital was listed as an added training site and low procedural volume compared to the national average in ACGME ADS.

    • We have broken ground on the new hospital and have a plan in place for Ortho Surg, but ACGME has been burned in the past when other programs used this justification. She told us to BUILD IT FIRST.
    • It didn’t help that our residents were under-reporting case logs due to the change to ABOS KSB. If anyone has tips on how they incentivize their trainees to log all cases/procedures, I’d love to hear them!

    And on a fun side note, my PD pointed out to the RC director that we can’t get case logs in the 90th percentile without violating ACGME work hour rules, and she invited us to include this comment in our next application. We all know the work hour rules, but ACGME won’t read between the lines and some things need to be stated explicitly.  Who knew????

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    May 20, 2026 at 7:47 am #9033
    Courtney Matlach
    Keymaster

    Helen-

    This is great, thanks so much for putting this together and sharing!

    Courtney

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