Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs)

Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) have shortages of primary medical care, dental or mental health providers and may be geographic (a county or service area), demographic (low income population) or institutional (community health center, federally qualified health center or other public facility). To be eligible for the Health Professions Loan Assistance Program (HPLAP), an applicant must work in a HPSA.

The federal Department of Health and Human Services’ Health Resources and Services Administration maintains a searchable database of HPSAs on their Find HPSAs website: http://hpsafind.hrsa.gov/. Consult this database to determine whether you are eligible to apply to the HPLAP.

HPSA status and codes are regularly reviewed and changed; if your community is not currently a HPSA, its status may change. Check the Find HPSAs website regularly.

The HPSA status of an urban area may be based on its Census Tract. To find out the census tract of a clinic or other facility, go to the Federal Financial Institutions Examination Council's (FFIEC) web site, http://www.ffiec.gov/Geocode/default.aspx, and enter the address. The resulting Tract Code is the address’ census tract. Compare this to information on the Find HPSA site to determine the location’s HPSA status.