YourVoice.Now Summary
Your MoneyTransparency & AccountabilitySpecialty doctors could get up to $250,000 of student loans paid off for six years of work in a rural area.
Your Money
The agency would pay one-sixth of the loan balance each year. The rest would come after the sixth year. In all, one person could get no more than $250,000.
The bill says the agency must run the doctor program, but only that it may run the one for non-doctor providers. Even if it does, no more than 15 percent of the money could go to those providers.
Leaving before the six years are up would not count as breaking the deal, as long as the person served in good faith the years they were paid for. The agency could still set a payback formula for other kinds of breach.
A non-doctor who joins could not also use other federal loan programs made for health workers. No one could be paid twice for the same years of work.
Transparency & Accountability
The agency would post fresh public numbers on how many such doctors and other providers there are. It would also tell Congress where people in the program end up working.
More about this bill
Doctors who work in a specialty other than primary care could get up to $250,000 in student loans paid off. In return, they would agree to work full time for six years in a rural area that is short on such doctors. The agency would pay one-sixth of the loan balance each year. Whatever is left would be paid after the sixth year. The doctor program would be required. A second program, for non-doctor providers licensed for specialty care, would be optional for the agency. No more than 15 percent of the money could go to those providers. The bill names no dollar amount. It clears the way for funding through 2034. It also does not say which places count as rural or how a shortage is measured.
Congressional Summary
Specialty Physicians Advancing Rural Care Act or the SPARC ActThis bill establishes student loan repayment programs to support the provision of specialty medical care in rural areas.The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) must carry out such a program for specialty medicine physicians (i.e., practicing in an area other than primary care) who provide care in rural communities with shortages of such physicians. Physicians must agree to a period of obligated service and, for each year of such service, HRSA must pay one-sixth of the principal payment and interest on eligible loans up to a maximum cap of $250,000. Additionally, HRSA may carry out a similar loan repayment program for nonphysician specialty health care providers.
Legislative Subjects
Details
- Congress
- 119th
- Chamber
- Senate
- Status
- summarized
- Action
- Introduced in Senate
- Action Date
- 2025-04-09
- Date Added
- 2026-09-02
- Source
- Congress.gov →
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