Lovanurse

Update for those who are tracking. Acceptance email received 7/1/2014 Confirmation email received today 7/31/14! "Dear NURSE Corps LRP Program Participant, Congratulations and welcome to the NURSE Corps Loan Repayment Program (LRP)! The NURSE Corps Loan Repayment Program (LRP) is administered by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration, Bureau of Clinician Recruitment and Service....ect"

It will say "[email protected]"

Score: 18 Debt to income ratio: 180%

Update! I am a finalist! FYI, I couldn't find an email, I just happened to log in this morning. Good thing I did because I had to accept by 7/5/2014. Good luck friends:-)

Cool! Congrats:-)

I just seen somebody post that they got an email regarding NHSC, but not Nurse Corps. I also work with an NP who applied for NHSC this year so I'll ask her. (She's on vacation in the DR). But she used Nurse Corp loan repayment for undergrad loans so she wasn't allowed to apply for it again.

What do you mean by finalist? I thought they didn't give any definitive answers until Sept? Just asking... I haven't heard anything yet

Just checking in! Still haven't heard anything

Thanks for the credit karma info! That app is awesome! I am a NP with a HPSA site score of 18 and debt/income ratio of 180%. I saw on credit karma that the "Dept of Heal" checked my credit on March 18th. I'll be praying for my allnurses friends!

Nurse Corp is for nurses, including Advanced practice nurses. NHSC is open to MDs, PAs, dentists, MH and NPs in primary care underserved areas http://hrsa.gov/m/loanrepayment/index.html

I am also playing the waiting game. I applied to HRSA (NHSC) last year and was denied because of a low HRSA score at one of the two sites that I work at. HRSA just recently raised the scores at both of my facilities so now I'm @ 18 and 19 for both sites. I decided to apply for Nurse Corp this year because I would get a better return. My debt to income ratio is 181%.

Wow... These salaries make me feel like I'm volunteering.

I would also say that I've learned that sometimes, the diagnosis wasn't "missed", it was an incidental finding. I've caught a few alpha thalassemia's when I first started and the MD would always ask me, "ok, what are you gonna do about it?" Although this is not always the case but if the treatment is just gonna waste more money and not necessarily provide a better outcome for the patient, it's not worth chasing the dog down.

I'm only 10 months into my career and my response may be different as I work in a HRSA site. Would I choose another profession? No. The good thing about being a FNP is you are always a nurse first so I can still moonlight and do RN work for extra cash. Also there are many different specialities so if you don't like primary care, you can do specialty, administration (director of nursing), retail, school nursing ect. The good- In a HRSA clinic in a underserved community, I learn something new everyday. Alot of these patients don't have insurance so I can't defer treatment to a specialist for things like weird rashes, DVTs, seizures, or CKD, I have to learn about it and manage myself (within my scope of practice). The ugly -my pay is not that great - as above, I can do without administration, red tape, ect. I have some administrators demand that I see a friend of theirs for a non-emergent problem. Blah! -The uninsured pt's in my practice, are hard to treat and non-compliant as most can't afford medications and office visits. -I sometimes have to call specialist and ask if they can see a patient (pro bono without money or insurance if I get something like a GFR of 11. Sometimes they say yes, and other times no. If no, then I'm stuck until I can wait for Medicaid to approve the pt for dialysis. So I'm kind of a social worker???? -I am expected to see a certain amount of patients per day. Here's my issue. If I worked in an area where everybody was compliant and insured, I could see 20+ patients per day. I sometimes pray for a drivers physical or a sinus infection every once in a while. My patients are sick. I can't see a patient on 20 different medications in 20 minutes. Especially when they completely ignore there diabetes and want to focus on their narcotics. On average, I see at least 2 patients per day with blood sugars >500 No insurance, no money for insulin and they're not going back to the ED. So, to sum it up...I am mentally fried, tired, but a lot smarter and a better nurse then I've ever been in my entire career. Gotta weigh the good and bad and figure out what's important to you.

May I ask what your HRSA score is? Mine is 19 and maybe it's too low.

I applied this year. I know the first disbursement should be Sept 30th. But when will they tell me if I'm even approved or not? I keep looking at my app status online and it says "under review" Has anybody heard from them yet?

Typo *Institutional Review Board (IRB)

I am a FNP/DNP and in my experience, you will still be considered a "new grad" whether you have a DNP or not. So, initially, try not to get caught up in the credentials as far as pay goes. Believe me, I memorized the DNP essentials front and back so that I could recite them in the interviews. It sounded impressive, but what they really want to know is if I could provide safe, evidenced based care. Later in your career, as you gain some experience, you may be able to negotiate a pay increase for your DNP. Experience is what employers care about. Also, as you search for your first job, you really want to try to build your resume and not solely focus on salary. Yes, you can work in a minute clinic and make $100,000/year. (Even they require at least 6 months of NP experience). But you will limit your clinical skills in that setting. I am working at my first FNP job (FQHC) and my salary kind of sucks, but the experience I'm getting is invaluable and it doesn't hurt that I'm getting my loans paid off in the process. In 3-5 years, I will be selling my experience and DNP and will expect to be paid for it. ? *this is just MY experience

Addendum for current recommendations: http://www.medpagetoday.com/OBGYN/GeneralOBGYN/38321

Correct... according to this chart. Just went to a conference and was told newer recommendations from ASCCP will be cytology q 5 years.

I agree with the above post. Evidence based practice is the way to go. Current recommendations are also leaning towards Pap smears every 5 years for women >30 yrs of age if she had 3 normal pap smears (strong recommendation). Grade A recommendation is every 3 years. http://www.cdc.gov/cancer/cervical/pdf/guidelines.pdf

Not to sound like a tape recorder but as stated above... My advice is to start thing of your area of interest now and work on your Literature Review as soon as you are taught how to do it. Then you won't be anxious and rushing right before graduation to finish your capstone. This project will make or break your chances of graduating. Get started early

Glad to know this is not the norm and there is a light at the end of the tunnel post loan repayment. This is my first NP job. Great learning experience. But I was beginning to think that if this is what an NP has to do everyday, I'm going back to being an RN:-( Hell, it's almost the same salary.

I'm currently working for a FQHC as an FNP. Right now, we are currently seeing scheduled patients about every 20 minutes. We have a 40% no show rate. For that reason, the Medical Director enforced double/triple booking. That's fine when you have 3/ 2:00 patients, and only one shows up. But when they all 3 show up at the same time, I get grief from the patients. This happened today. A patient had a same day appointment (triple book) and she had to wait 1 hour and 22 minutes before I got to her. I had a (scheduled) NP/foster care PE and a NP routine gyne both at 2:00pm. She threw all kinds of F bombs at me for the wait time. So, we've had this conversation several times with the Medical Director stating, it is not fair to the patients to book 3 patients in one slot. His response was that most offices across the country double and triple book...that's just how it is when you have to report numbers to the Feds. So Im wondering, how common is this and what is your policy on double/triple booked patients? Secondly, we are switching over to an open access scheduling starting April 1st. For anybody who is not familiar with this type of scheduling...patients never get a scheduled appointment. For example, for routine diabetic checks, you tell them to come back in 3 months and they are supposed to call in 3 months to say..."I would like to see my doctor today." If the schedule is full for the day, they can get on for the next day. The idea is, first call, first serve and call back the next day if there are no open slots. Anybody else do open access scheduling? And how does this work for your underserved, non-compliant, very complicated patients? I've been chosen to be the first to try it out. In my experience, with this particular population. They are train wrecks when they come in. Their blood sugar is 500, blood pressure is 200/100 ect. So the very non-compliant chronic patients come in when they're near death and it takes at least an hour to get their medications back on tract. If they were scheduled, we would never see them because they can't keep appointments so they would go to the ER. Sorry for such a long post. Interested in your thoughts.