261.114  Rural Iowa advanced registered nurse practitioner and physician assistant loan repayment program — fund — appropriations.
  1.  Program established.  A rural Iowa advanced registered nurse practitioner and physician assistant loan repayment program is established to be administered by the college student aid commission for purposes of providing loan repayments for advanced registered nurse practitioner students and physician assistant students who agree to practice as advanced registered nurse practitioners or physician assistants in service commitment areas for five years and meet the requirements of this section.
  2.  Eligibility.  An individual is eligible to apply to enter into a program agreement with the commission if the individual is enrolled full-time in and receives a recommendation from an eligible university in a curriculum leading to a doctorate of nursing practice degree or a masters of physician assistant studies degree.
  3.  Program agreements.  A program agreement shall be entered into by an eligible student and the commission when the eligible student begins the final year of study in an academic program leading to eligibility for licensure as a nurse practitioner or physician assistant. The commission shall not enter into any new program agreement under this section on or after July 1, 2018. Under the agreement, to receive loan repayments pursuant to subsection 5, an eligible student shall agree to and shall fulfill all of the following requirements:
  a.  Receive a graduate-level credential qualifying the credential recipient for a license to practice as an advanced registered nurse practitioner pursuant to chapter 152 or physician assistant pursuant to chapter 148C.
  b.  Within nine months of receiving a degree and obtaining a license in accordance with paragraph “a”, engage in the full-time practice as an advanced registered nurse practitioner or physician assistant for a period of five consecutive years in the service commitment area specified under subsection 6, unless the loan repayment recipient receives a waiver from the commission to complete the years of practice required under the agreement in another service commitment area pursuant to subsection 6.
  4.  Priority to Iowa residents.  The commission shall give priority to eligible students who are residents of Iowa upon enrolling in the eligible university.
  5.  Loan repayment amounts.  The amount of loan repayment an eligible student who enters into an agreement pursuant to subsection 3 shall receive if in compliance with obligations under the agreement shall not exceed four thousand dollars annually for an eligible loan. Payments under this section may be made for each year of eligible practice during a period of five consecutive years and shall not exceed a total of twenty thousand dollars.
  6.  Selection of service commitment area.  A loan repayment recipient shall notify the commission of the recipient’s service commitment area prior to beginning practice in the area in accordance with subsection 3. The commission may waive the requirement that the loan repayment recipient practice in the same service commitment area for all five years.
  7.  Rules for additional loan repayment.  The commission shall adopt rules to provide, in addition to loan repayment provided to eligible students pursuant to this section and subject to the availability of surplus funds, loan repayment to an advanced registered nurse practitioner or physician assistant who, as provided in subsection 3, received a degree from an eligible university, obtained a license to practice in this state, and is engaged in full-time practice as an advanced registered nurse practitioner or physician assistant in a service commitment area.
  8.  Satisfaction of service obligation.
  a.  An obligation to engage in full-time practice under an agreement entered into pursuant to subsection 3 shall be considered satisfied when any of the following conditions are met:
  (1)  The terms of the agreement are completed.
  (2)  The person who entered into the agreement dies.
  (3)  The person who entered into the agreement, due to a permanent disability, is unable to practice as an advanced registered nurse practitioner or physician assistant.
  b.  If a loan repayment recipient fails to fulfill the obligation to engage in practice in accordance with subsection 3, the recipient shall be subject to repayment to the commission of the loan amount plus interest as specified by rule. A loan repayment recipient who fails to meet the requirements of the obligation to engage in practice in accordance with subsection 3 may also be subject to repayment of moneys advanced by the service commitment area as provided in any agreement with the service commitment area.
  9.  Trust fund established.  A rural Iowa advanced registered nurse practitioner and physician assistant trust fund is created in the state treasury as a separate fund under the control of the commission. The commission shall remit all repayments made pursuant to this section to the rural Iowa advanced registered nurse practitioner and physician assistant trust fund. All moneys deposited or paid into the trust fund are appropriated and made available to the commission to be used for meeting the requirements of this section. Moneys in the fund up to the total amount that an eligible student may receive for an eligible loan in accordance with this section and upon fulfilling the requirements of subsection 3 shall be considered encumbered for the duration of the agreement entered into pursuant to subsection 3. Notwithstanding section 8.33, any balance in the fund on June 30 of each fiscal year shall not revert to the general fund of the state, but shall be available for purposes of this section in subsequent fiscal years. Notwithstanding section 8.33, any balance in the fund on June 30, 2023, shall not revert to the general fund of the state but shall be transferred to the health care loan repayment fund established pursuant to section 261.116 to be used for purposes of the health care loan repayment program.
  10.  Definitions.  For purposes of this section:
  a.  “Eligible loan” means the loan repayment recipient’s total federally guaranteed Stafford loan amount under the federal family education loan program or the federal direct loan program, the recipient’s federal grad plus loans, or the recipient’s federal Perkins loan, including principal and interest.
  b.  “Eligible university” means a college or university that meets the requirements of section 261.2, subsection 10, and is an institution of higher learning under the control of the state board of regents or an accredited private institution as defined in section 261.9.
  c.  “Service commitment area” means a city in Iowa with a population of less than twenty-six thousand that is located more than twenty miles from a city with a population of fifty thousand or more and which provides a two thousand dollar contribution for deposit in the rural Iowa advanced registered nurse practitioner and physician assistant trust fund for each advanced registered nurse practitioner or physician assistant in the community who is participating in the rural Iowa advanced registered nurse practitioner and physician assistant loan repayment program.
  11.  Future repeal.  This section is repealed July 1, 2023.
2013 Acts, ch 141, §16; 2014 Acts, ch 1061, §11 – 14; 2014 Acts, ch 1135, §18, 19; 2016 Acts, ch 1038, §2; 2018 Acts, ch 1163, §15 – 19
Subsection 3, unnumbered paragraph 1 amended
Subsection 8 stricken and former subsections 9 and 10 amended and renumbered as 8 and 9
Former subsection 11 renumbered as 10
NEW subsection 11