Physicians offered incentives to practice in New Orleans

The Greater New Orleans Health Service Corps has $50 million to rebuild the region's health care work force.

By Myrle Croasdale, AMNews staff. Aug. 6, 2007.

Michael Wilson, MD, is ready to come home. A Louisiana State University School of Medicine graduate and New Orleans native, he looks forward to practicing in the city he was forced to depart following Hurricane Katrina.

He will be leaving a custom-tailored psychiatry research position at the University Hospitals in Cleveland for a city where he has no job yet. His incentive is a loan-forgiveness program that will pay off his $98,000 in medical school debt in exchange for a three-year commitment to work in New Orleans.

"All my family is still in New Orleans," Dr. Wilson said. "They told me about the program to lure me back. It worked."

The program is the Greater New Orleans Health Service Corps, which has $50 million from the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services to recruit and retain doctors and other health care professionals to work among the region's underserved. Last year, the federal government declared the city and some of its surrounding parishes a health professional shortage area. Since the corps opened in April, the agency has awarded $6.5 million in grants to 81 health care professionals, including 37 physicians.

The corps offers each physician:

• Up to $110,000 in loan repayment or income guarantees.
• As much as $40,000 for a sign-on bonus or medical liability insurance premium payments.
• A maximum of $20,000 for relocation expenses.
• Up to $10,000 for continuing medical education on health information technology.