261.116  Health care loan repayment program.
  1.  Definitions.  For purposes of this section, unless the context otherwise requires:
  a.  “Advanced registered nurse practitioner” means a person licensed as a registered nurse under chapter 152 or 152E who is licensed by the board of nursing as an advanced registered nurse practitioner.
  b.  “Nurse educator” means a registered nurse who holds a master’s degree or doctorate degree and is employed by a community college, an accredited private institution, or an institution of higher education governed by the state board of regents as a faculty member to teach nursing at a nursing education program approved by the board of nursing pursuant to section 152.5.
  c.  “Physician assistant” means a person licensed as a physician assistant under chapter 148C.
  d.  “Qualified student loan” means a loan that was made, insured, or guaranteed under Tit. IV of the federal Higher Education Act of 1965, as amended, or under Tit. VII or VIII of the federal Public Health Service Act, as amended, directly to the borrower for attendance at an approved postsecondary educational institution.
  e.  “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.
  2.  Program established.  A health care loan repayment program is established to be administered by the commission for purposes of repaying the qualified student loans of registered nurses, advanced registered nurse practitioners, physician assistants, and nurse educators who practice full-time in a service commitment area or teach in this state, as appropriate, and who are selected for the program in accordance with this section. An applicant who is a member of the Iowa national guard is exempt from the service commitment area requirement, but shall submit an affidavit verifying the applicant is practicing full-time in this state.
  3.  Application requirements.  Each applicant for loan repayment shall, in accordance with the rules of the commission, do the following:
  a.  Complete and file an application for loan repayment. The individual shall be responsible for the prompt submission of any information required by the commission.
  b.  File a new application and submit information as required by the commission annually on the basis of which the applicant’s eligibility for the renewed loan repayment will be evaluated and determined.
  c.  Complete and return, on a form approved by the commission, an affidavit of practice verifying that the applicant is a registered nurse, an advanced registered nurse practitioner, or a physician assistant who is practicing full-time in a service commitment area in this state or is a nurse educator who teaches full-time in this state. If practice in a service commitment area is required as a condition of receiving loan repayment, the affidavit shall specify the service commitment area in which the applicant is practicing full-time.
  4.  Loan repayment amounts.  The annual amount of loan repayment provided to a recipient under this section shall not exceed six thousand dollars, or twenty percent of the recipient’s total qualified student loan, whichever amount is less. A recipient is eligible for the loan repayment program for not more than five consecutive years.
  5.  Refinanced loans.  A loan repayment recipient who refinances a qualified student loan by obtaining a private educational loan may continue to receive loan repayment under this section if the amount of loan repayment does not exceed the lesser of the amount specified in subsection 4 or the balance of the loan repayment amount the loan repayment recipient qualified to receive with the qualified student loan.
  6.  Selection criteria.  The commission shall establish by rule the evaluation criteria to be used in evaluating applications submitted under this section. Priority shall be given to applicants who are residents of Iowa and, if requested by the adjutant general, to applicants who are members of the Iowa national guard.
  7.  Health care loan repayment fund.  A health care loan repayment fund is created for deposit of moneys appropriated to or received by the commission for use under the program. Notwithstanding section 8.33, moneys deposited in the health care loan repayment fund shall not revert to any fund of the state at the end of any fiscal year but shall remain in the loan repayment fund and be continuously available for loan repayment under the program. Notwithstanding section 12C.7, subsection 2, interest or earnings on moneys deposited in the health care loan fund shall be credited to the fund.
  8.  Report.  The commission shall submit in a report to the general assembly by January 1, annually, the number of individuals who received loan repayment pursuant to this section, where the participants practiced or taught, the amount paid to each program participant, and other information identified by the commission as indicators of outcomes of the program.
  9.  Rules.  The commission shall adopt rules pursuant to chapter 17A to administer this section.
2002 Acts, ch 1131, §1
C2003, §261.23
2003 Acts, ch 108, §47; 2007 Acts, ch 214, §26; 2009 Acts, ch 118, §49, 50, 54; 2014 Acts, ch 1061, §16
C2015, §261.116
2018 Acts, ch 1163, §20; 2020 Acts, ch 1007, §6 – 8
Referred to in §261.2, 261.114
2020 amendment to section applies retroactively to January 1, 2019, for recipients of loan repayment; 2020 Acts, ch 1007, §8
NEW subsection 5 and former subsections 5 – 8 renumbered as 6 – 9