Allowing radiologists to participate in the rural Iowa primary care loan repayment program

This bill allows radiologists to participate in the rural Iowa primary care loan repayment program, which is administered by the college student aid commission. The program provides loan repayments for medical students who agree to practice as physicians in service commitment areas for five consecutive years after graduating from a residency program and receiving a permanent license to practice medicine and surgery or osteopathic medicine and surgery in this state. For purposes of the program, a service commitment area is a city that provides a $20,000 contribution to the rural Iowa primary care trust fund for each physician in the community who is participating in the program, and the city is either within a federal mental health shortage area, if the physician participating in the program specializes in psychiatry, or the city has a population of less than 26,000 and is located more than 20 miles from a city with a population of 50,000. Current law provides that persons who engage in the full-time or part-time practice of medicine and surgery or osteopathic medicine and surgery specializing in family medicine, pediatrics, psychiatry, internal medicine, obstetrics and gynecology, neurology, or general surgery are allowed to participate in the program, if certain other criteria are satisfied. The bill adds persons engaged in the full-time or part-time practice of medicine and surgery or osteopathic medicine and surgery who specialize in radiology to the list of allowable participants in the program.