Service Obligation

Participants may complete residency and/or fellowship training in West Virginia or in other states. The service obligation begins within six months after the participant completes training. It requires that participants practice at an eligible site one year for each year they receive the award (a maximum of 4 years). Participants are responsible for securing their own practice site.

Once you are no longer enrolled at least half time, you will enter a grace period of six months. Before the end of the grace period then every year you are in residency/training, you must complete a Residency Deferment Form so the award can be placed in deferment.

Once your residency or training is completed, you will need to obtain employment and complete the Employment Verification Form to verify you are meeting the terms of your obligation. This form will need submitted each year until you have completed the service obligation based on the terms of the promissory note.

Participants may practice any of the following primary care or shortage specialties at any site anywhere in West Virginia:

• Addiction Medicine
• Emergency Medicine
• Family Practice
• General Internal Medicine
• General Surgery
• Geriatrics
• Internal Medicine/Pediatrics
• Neurology
• OB/GYN
• Pediatrics
• Preventive Medicine
• Psychiatry (includes Addiction, Child & Adolescent, and Geriatric)

If recipient is working in a specialty not listed above, they would be required to practice in a qualifying underserved worksite meets at least ONE of the following criteria:

• The employer is in a geographic Primary Care HPSA. Counties in the state that currently have a geographic HPSA include:
• Hampshire
• Jackson
• Jefferson
• McDowell
• Morgan
• Wyoming
• Employer has a facility based HPSA designation. Facility-based HPSA designations are given to the following kinds of facilities:
  • Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs)
  • Rural Health Clinics
  • Correctional facilities
  • State Mental Health Hospitals
  • Free clinics
• Located in a county with a low-income HPSA designation and able to provide proof that more than 50% of insurance payers over the past 6 months are on low-income programs like Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, VA Benefits, sliding scale or free services.
• Any site that can provide proof that more than 50% of insurance payers over the past 6 months are on low-income programs like Medicare, Medicaid, CHIP, VA Benefits, sliding scale or free services.

In the event the service obligation is not completed, the participant is responsible for repaying the award amount received plus five percent interest accruing from the date training is completed or terminated.

If you receive notification from Heartland ECSI and are completing the obligation, contact our office at choosewv@wvhepc.edu or 304-558-4618.