Wednesday, November 24, 2010

New health-care reform dollars to train more medical professionals

The new federal health reform law will soon begin providing $290 million in financial assistance to medical, dental, and mental health care professionals, Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced Monday in Baltimore.

"From the start, we knew in addition to making sure Americans could get affordable health insurance, we also needed to look at the provider pipeline, making sure there were enough doctors, nurses, physician assistants, dentists and other health care professionals to provide the care that was needed," Sebelius said.

The infusion of funds is intended to help address what many predict will be a severe shortage of health care professionals to meet the needs of a flood of new patients. Stimulus dollars added a boost in funding for the nation's publicly supported community health centers which serve the uninsured and the poor. The infusion of dollars from the new health reform law is expected to add an estimated 3,500 clinicians nationwide to these centers.

Starting Nov. 30, health care professionals and paraprofessionals can receive up to $60,000 in loan repayment in exchange for a two-year commitment to working in a community health center. Longer commitments can earn more training dollars, and new scholarships are also being made available, Liz F. Kay reported for The Baltimore Sun.

Rural areas, which have historically had high underserved populations, could gain an influx of new medical professionals as these new training dollars, loans, and scholarships finance professional training and help reinforce the corps of public health professionals. Many, experience has shown, will find a home for life. (Read more)

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