Mental Health Professionals Workforce Shortage Loan Repayment Act of 2025
Summary
What This Bill Does
The bill adds a Public Health Service Act program under which HRSA repays qualifying education loans for mental health professionals who complete service in shortage areas. For each service year, the Secretary pays one sixth of the outstanding eligible loan balance, with the remainder paid after the sixth and final year, capped at 250000 dollars per individual. Eligible loans include mental health masters, doctoral, postdoctoral, Direct, PLUS, Unsubsidized Stafford, Consolidation, Perkins, and other approved federal loans. The bill authorizes 25 million dollars per year from fiscal years 2026 through 2035 and requires recurring congressional reports on borrower locations and service availability impacts.
Who Benefits and How
Mental health professionals with qualifying student debt benefit from up to 250000 dollars in loan repayment. Patients and communities in mental health shortage areas benefit from stronger incentives for psychiatrists, psychologists, psychiatric nurses, social workers, counselors, therapists, and neurologists to serve locally. Shortage-area clinics and practices benefit from a larger provider pipeline.
Who Bears the Burden and How
HRSA must run agreements, verify eligible loans and service, prevent double benefits with other federal loan forgiveness programs, establish breach rules, and report to Congress. Borrowers must complete up to six years of qualifying full-time service to receive full repayment. Federal taxpayers fund the 25 million dollar annual authorization.
Key Provisions
- Creates an HRSA loan repayment program for mental health professionals serving shortage areas.
- Provides one sixth of eligible outstanding loan principal and interest for each year of service, with the remainder after year six.
- Caps total repayment at 250000 dollars for each participant and bars duplicate repayment for the same service.
- Authorizes 25 million dollars per year from fiscal years 2026 through 2035 and requires recurring congressional impact reports.
Evidence Chain:
This summary is generated from the full bill text using AI analysis. Expand "Detailed Analysis" below for identified beneficiaries/burden bearers with clause-level evidence links.
At a Glance
What This Bill Does
Creates an HRSA loan repayment program for mental health professionals who serve in mental health professional shortage areas.
Key Policy Areas
Healthcare, Education, Financial Services
Primary Purpose
Creates an HRSA loan repayment program for mental health professionals who serve in mental health professional shortage areas.
Policy Domains
Substantive provisions
Identified Gains
- mental health professionals
- patients in shortage areas
- healthcare facilities
Identified Costs
- Health Resources and Services Administration staff
- borrowers with service obligations
- federal taxpayers
Sponsors
Legislative Progress
In CommitteeMs. Salinas (for herself, Mr. Fitzpatrick, Mr. Ciscomani, and Ms. …
Referred to the House Committee on Energy and Commerce.
Introduced in House
Stakeholder Effects
cui bono?How this legislation distributes effects. Mention counts reflect frequency, not effect magnitude.
borrowers with six-year service obligations, healthcare facilities in shortage areas, mental health professionals with qualifying student loans
Positive-direction: healthcare facilities in shortage areas, mental health professionals with qualifying student loans, patients in mental health shortage areas
Negative-direction: borrowers with six-year service obligations
Health Resources and Services Administration administrators, Health Resources and Services Administration program staff
federal taxpayers funding mental health loan repayment
Bill Structure & Actor Mappings
Who is "The Secretary" in each section?
- "Secretary"
- → Secretary of Health and Human Services
- "Administrator"
- → Health Resources and Services Administration Administrator
Key Definitions
Terms defined in this bill
A full-time job whose primary function is direct treatment or recovery support for patients with or in recovery from a mental health disorder.
We use a combination of our own taxonomy and classification in addition to large language models to assess meaning and potential beneficiaries. High confidence means strong textual evidence. Always verify with the original bill text.
Learn more about our methodology