HHS grants more than $240 million to expand primary care

The National Health Services Corps and NURSE Corps scholarship and loan repayment programs will receive more than $240 million in funding from HHS, according to a press release.

“The most critical step in connecting people to quality health care is a primary care provider. These awards provide financial support directly to health professionals, including physicians, registered nurses, and physician assistants, to help individuals — particularly the 17.6 million uninsured who have recently gained coverage — find the primary care services they need,” Sylvia M. Burwell, HHS Secretary, said in the release.

Sylvia M. Burwell

Both programs, the National Health Services Corps (NHSC) and NURSE Corps, provide primary care students and clinicians with funding in exchange for their service in underserved communities, according to the release. Additionally, the programs assist health care professionals interested in practicing a primary care discipline by removing financial barriers and enabling them to pursue careers in community-based care.

About $176 million in grants will come from Affordable Care Act funding.

Specific programs receiving funding include:

$39.3 million to the NHSC Scholarship program, which will provide 196 new awards to primary care students training for a degree in medicine, dentistry or a nurse-midwife, physician assistant, or nurse practitioner;
$125.9 million to the NHSC Loan Repayment program, which will provide 2,934 awards to fully trained primary care physicians;
$11.2 million to the NHSC Students to Service Loan Repayment program, which provides 96 awards of loan repayments to allopathic and osteopathic medical students in the final year of school;
$23.2 million to the NURSE Corps Scholarship program, which provides 257 new awards to nursing students in exchange for 2 years of work in facilities with critical shortages;
$39.6 million to the NURSE Corps Loan Repayment program, which provides 590 new awards for loan repayment to nurses;
$1.1 million to the Faculty Loan Repayment program, which provides 21 new awards health professional educators; and,
$799,000 to the Native Hawaiian Health Scholarship program, which provides nine awards to help Native Hawaiian health care professionals deliver care to Native Hawaiians in Hawaii.

According to the release, the number of NHSC participants has doubled since 2008, with more than 9,600 primary care medical, dental, nursing, behavioral and mental health practitioners currently serving, in addition to more than 2,000 nurses in NURSE Corps.

“These awards not only strengthen our primary care workforce, but increased access to primary care in urban, rural and frontier locations nationwide. Collectively, these programs are serving millions of Americans who rely on the National Health Service Corps and NURSE Corps clinicians for essential health care services,” Jim Macrae, HRSA acting administrator, said in the release.