Great news. The UA Colleges of Medicine in Tucson and Phoenix are creating a new tuition waiver program for medical students specializing in primary care fields that agree to work in rural under-served areas in Arizona. Up to 94 students who attend the UA Colleges of Medicine in Phoenix or Tucson can receive free tuition if they agree to practice in a rural area for at least 2 years after they graduate.
Kudos to the UA Administration for making the decision to spend a big chunk of the $8M that had appropriated to the medical schools in last year’s state budget for this innovative and badly needed intervention.
In addition to the $8M appropriation to those medical schools, last year’s budget included an additional $750,000 for the State Loan Repayment Program (to make a total of $1.75M/year) and $12.5M more for Graduate Medical Education ($7M rural and $4.5M urban).
The new UA tuition waiver program will be a new resource to help carry some of the additional load already carried by the state’s loan repayment program. That program was enhanced back in 2015 with the success of Senate Bill 1194 which enhanced Arizona’s State Loan Repayment Program by expanding the types of providers who can receive loan repayment assistance, increasing the award amounts for the initial and succeeding commitment years, and removing the 4-year service cap.
The list of practitioners that can qualify for the state loan repayment program now include primary care physicians, dentists, advanced practice providers like nurse practitioners, physician assistants, nurse midwives, mental health providers, pharmacists and geriatrics.
The AZ loan repayment program makes up to $65,000 available (for a 2-year commitment) for physicians and dentists. Advanced practice providers can qualify for up to $50,000. The incentives even get better as providers stay longer in the program.
For each year of continued service in the under-served area after the first two years, physicians and dentists can receive up to $35,000. Actually the loan repayment funds are worth even more than these figures because it is loan relief that isn’t counted as income for tax purposes.
