Healthcare Professional
Loan Repayment Program:
An Affirmation
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The shortage of medical staff nowadays cause some inconvenience when it comes to their services. For instance, in Alaska, the need for health care professionals is steadily rising, while shortages are now evident in some categories. (Carr, 2007, p.4) This is an important issue, because in the culture of any advanced community, healthcare is of primary importance. Thus, it is necessary first to consider the nature of the medical professions in general, then to identify its relationships with the other professions, and most of all, to ensure each professional benefit, especially for financial encouragement such as support-for-service program (SFSP).
Such strategy is also used to ensure enough professionals in the field, for SFSP encourage each professional to maintain their positions. Of this, there are five types: scholarships, service-option loans, loan repayment, direct financial incentives, and residency support programs. According to Alaska's Health Planning & Systems Development, Department of Health & Human Services, every SFSP's aim is "to improve healthcare staffing in shortage areas," and it has been proved that loan repayment programs is one of the most effective of the several support-for-service strategies, in terms of both recruitment and retention.
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Union of Health and Social Care Professionals
Power panther in Boston SFSP kick off event(2007)
Also, it is confirmed that loan repayment, one of the SFSP, has been found to be a successful strategy to recruit and retain health care professionals. Every Healthcare Professional Loan Repayment Program (HPLP) objective is to enhance the ability of medically underserved communities to recruit and retain healthcare professionals. These professionals formulate commitments at the time they are ready to begin their service obligations. Moreover, as argue by the Washington Department of Health, the loan repayment program provides loan repayment assistance to licensed primary care health professionals such as: General Family MD, DO, and ND, General Internist, General Pediatrician, OB/GYN,