FPs Can Apply for NHSC Loan Repayment Funds Now

June 2 is a big day for new family physicians who could use some help getting their educational loans paid back and are seeking a unique service opportunity. Of a total of $300 million allocated to the National Health Service Corps, or NHSC, under the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009, some $200 million is slated to go to the NHSC Loan Repayment Program, or LRP. Starting today, physicians can apply for the NHSC LRP funds.

In exchange for two years of service at an eligible site in a federally designated health professional shortage area, the program offers repayment of qualifying educational loans of as much as $50,000 for primary care clinicians, including allopathic or osteopathic physicians, who provide full-time clinical services.

Clinicians who stay at the designated sites longer may be eligible to apply for additional years of support.

The NHSC is administered by the Health Resources and Services Administration, which is charged with increasing access to health care for people who live in medically underserved areas.

Beginning now through September 2010, or until the funds are expended, NHSC LRP awards will be available on a first-come, first-served basis. There are several new features of the program.

AAFP member David Hoffman, D.O., of Chambersburg, Pa., started work at the then-new Keystone Health Center in Chambersburg in 1994 as a physician in the NHSC LRP. Eventually, he became medical director of its family medicine clinic.

Fifteen years later, the self-professed one-time "city boy" from Philadelphia is still in the borough of almost 18,000 in rural south central Pennsylvania. And Hoffmann says he and his family enjoy it.

He started the Hospitalists of Franklin County in 2004, a group of physicians based at Chambersburg Hospital, and works part-time as medical director of Keystone's HIV clinic.

Hoffman credits the NHSC LRP for paying back the lion's share -- $75,000 -- of his $110,000 educational loan debt. The $35,000 balance was paid off through a state program.

"Since I've moved to Chambersburg, I've never had to pay any medical school debt out of my pocket. I went through federal and state programs and my loans were done. It was win-win at the end of the day."