Help with student loan repayment is the most common tool used to attract and keep physicians in rural areas, but a recent study I co-authored with the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center demonstrated that loan repayment is far from a perfect solution. What if the physician doesn’t need help with loans? What if it is family pressure that is the real driver back to the city?
The Colorado Rural Outreach Program (CROP), administered by CRHC, was created for challenges exactly like this. The program’s creators understood that creativity and flexibility are called for when the goal is getting, and keeping, health professionals in rural and underserved areas.
“How creative can they be?” you ask. Try this one on for size. One doc’s family — his teenage daughter in particular — was pushing him to move to the city. The girl was bored in the country. The solution: use the CROP program to give the doctor an incentive bonus he could use to buy his daughter a horse. Might sound crazy, but it worked. The daughter was thrilled to get a horse she had long wanted, and the doc was happy to make a continued commitment to stay in his rural community.
CROP was started in 1998 by the Colorado Medical Society and has been administered by CRHC since 2005. In recent years, the program has been primarily supported by The Colorado Trust, but thanks to funds from the Colorado Health Foundation, we have been able to make a $25,000 per year donation to CROP for the next three years that was equally matched by our partners at the Colorado Community Health Network. In addition, the Colorado Medical Society recently provided a generous $10,000 grant to the program and the Caring for Colorado Foundation granted an additional $30,000. The El Pomar Foundation also generously awarded $20,000 to CROP for 2011. (Add up all of the new donations and we have $110,000 new dollars for CROP!)
Grants from the program can be used for loan repayment or healthcare provider bonuses (like the money for the aforementioned horse). All grants made through CROP require a one-to-one community match, ensuring the locals have “some skin in the game” too.
The program’s grants can be paid to a wide variety of providers, so this isn’t just a doc thing.
For more information on CROP and loan repayment programs, click here. To read the study on the impact of loan repayment programs click here.
