Accountability for graduate medical education: report of an unsuccessful experiment.

An experiment is reported which utilized a professional medical care organization as the base for intern and resident education. The major reason for its failure was the undue rigidity of Title XVIII (Medicare) of the Social Security Act and associated regulations. The data assembled suggest that the mechanism is feasible and could potentially obviate (or at least minimize) many of the existing problems associated with the operation and financing of graduate medical education using a hospital as the organizational base.