Tucked inside the massive Omnibus Spending bill recently signed into law by President Joe Biden are two important workforce programs: the Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program and the Bio-Preparedness Workforce Pilot Program.
ASCP strongly supports these programs—originally included in the PREVENT Pandemics Act—and
urged Congress to include laboratory professionals as eligible for these programs.
Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program is intended to help address public health workforce shortages and has been around for a while. What’s important, however, is that the program has just been expanded. New statutory provisions clarify that individuals with or seeking a degree or certificate in laboratory sciences, data science, informatics, or other similar subjects are eligible for loan forgiveness.
To be eligible for loan repayment, the individual would need to “be employed by, or have accepted employment with, a State, local, or Tribal public health agency, or a related training fellowship at such Federal, State, local, or Tribal public health agency, as recognized by the Secretary.” The program will provide for up to $50,000 in loan repayment for each year of “obligated service” (three years total). In addition, the program will provide funding to cover any tax obligations associated the loan forgiveness program.
Bio-Preparedness Workforce Pilot Program: Omnibus spending bill also created a new loan repayment program, called the Bio-Preparedness Workforce Pilot Program. The program is intended to “to incentivize healthcare professionals to pursue careers in infectious disease and bio-preparedness in underserved communities and health professional shortage areas.” ASCP helped ensure that laboratory professionals were included in the program.
The new program is expected to be structured similarly to the Public Health Workforce Loan Repayment Program. Individuals participating in the program will also be required to complete a service obligation. Eligible employment sites are slightly different, however, and include:
(1) a federal health care facility;
(2) a nonprofit health care facility located in a health professional shortage area, frontier health professional shortage area, or medically under-served community;
(3) a health program or facility operated by an Indian Tribe or Tribal organization or by an urban Indian organization;
(4) an entity receiving assistance under HIV Service Care program; or
(5) another relevant entity determined appropriate by the Secretary of Health and Human Services.
This pilot program is authorized to provide loan repayment opportunities through 2025, but ASCP hopes to see the program become permanent.
GAO Workforce Study: Another provision of the Omnibus Spending Bill requires the Government Accountability Office to conduct an evaluation of the public health workforce to identify:
(1) gaps in the public health workforce, including positions that may be required to prepare for, and respond to, a public health emergency such as COVID–19;
(2) challenges associated with the hiring, recruitment, and retention of these professionals; and
(3) Federal efforts to improve hiring, recruitment, and retention of the public health workforce.
Given ASCP’s extensive work in this area, we plan to work with GAO to make sure it understands the importance of the laboratory profession, the challenges facing our field and what steps the federal government can take to nurture it.
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For more information regarding ASCP's advocacy initiatives and policy positions, please contact ASCP's Center for Public Policy at (202) 408-1110.
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