Published Dec 18, 2015
PHhopeful
29 Posts
I recently received the HRSA NURSE Corps Scholarship and will be graduating in May. I am having the hardest time understanding/interpreting HPSA scores on the data warehouse website. I know we must look for a job in an area designated 14 or greater. I've found two ways to search--one being searching by address, which populates information about a specific site; the other being searching by county, which populates a list of eligible facilities in that county. I've found that agencies are listed differently on one list than the other. Which should I go by? Here's the two lists I'm referring to:
HPSA Find
HRSA - Find Shortage Areas: HPSA & MUA/P by Address - Version 2.0
Any help would be appreciated--HRSA hasn't been too helpful in answering. I also am curious if an area has a Mental Health score of 14 but the Primary Care designation is lower, and I find a primary care job, is it eligible because the MH score qualifies, even though it's a primary care job? The handbook made it sound like this is appropriate ('the site eligibility will be determined by whichever score is higher').
RunawayN
284 Posts
The second link. Just put in the hospital address and look at the score.
I'm not sure about the mental health score. You should ask your representative to see if you can work there
Thank you for the reply--I'm unfortunately still confused! In my interpretation, the qualifications are different for NURSE Corps vs. NHSC. According to the flyer, NHSC requires "Minimum of two years of full-time serviceat an NHSC-approved site in a HealthProfessional Shortage Area of greatest need" (thus, searching by the second link); but NURSE Corps requires, "Minimum two-year service commitment(or part-time equivalent) at an eligiblehealth care facility" (which sounds more like the first--the list of facilities rather than catchment areas). I dunno--I'll call my recruiter and try to figure it out, but hoping someone could explain it in plain language. I wish there wasn't a discrepancy between the two.