NC LRP - Supporting Statement - Updated 7.30.25

Supporting Statement A

Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program

OMB Control No. 0915-0140-Revision

Terms of Clearance: None

A. Justification

1. Circumstances Making the Collection of Information Necessary

This is a request for revision of the Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program (Nurse Corps LRP) application and participant monitoring forms. The Nurse Corps LRP is authorized by 42 USC 297n(a) (section 846(a) of the Public Health Service Act, as amended by Public Law 107-205, and Public Law 111-148. The application and forms are approved under OMB No. 0915-0140, which expires 2/28/2026.

The Nurse Corps LRP assists in the recruitment and retention of professional Registered Nurses (RNs), including Advanced Practice Registered Nurses (APRNs) by decreasing the financial barriers associated with pursuing a nursing profession. APRNs include nurse practitioners, certified registered nurse anesthetists, certified nurse-midwives, and clinical nurse specialists. Nurse Corps LRP participants are dedicated to working at eligible health care facilities with a critical shortage of nurses (i.e., a Critical Shortage Facility) or working as nurse faculty in eligible, accredited schools of nursing.

Under the Nurse Corps LRP, RNs, APRNs, and nurse faculty are offered the opportunity to enter into a contractual agreement with the HHS Secretary to receive loan repayment for up to 60 percent of their qualifying student loans in exchange for a two-year service commitment, and an additional 25 percent of their original loan balance for an optional third year. In exchange, the participants agree to serve full-time for a minimum of two years at a public or private nonprofit Critical Shortage Facility or in an eligible, accredited school of nursing. The Nurse Corps LRP statute requires that a funding preference be given to eligible applicants with greatest financial need.

HRSA collects information from the individual when they are a Nurse Corps LRP applicant, to confirm their interest in being a participant, and while they are a participant to ensure that they are fulfilling their service commitment. During the application, HRSA uses financial data provided by applicants to determine which applications meet the statutory preference of awarding eligible applicants with the greatest financial need. HRSA also uses applicant’s educational data to determine if their educational loans qualify for the loan repayment program. Finally, the employment data collected confirms that the applicant is working at Critical Shortage Facility, or at an eligible accredited school of nursing. Once an applicant has been selected, HRSA uses the Confirmation of Interest form as a way for applicants to accept the terms, and to sign their contract. Finally, the In-Service Verification form is used to collect information about their employment to ensure the participant’s compliance with the program requirements.

Updates to this information collection request include the following:

• Nurse Corps LRP added the following question on the application: Will you be serving in a birth center? This question was added to strengthen healthcare infrastructures in rural and underserved area by encouraging nurses and midwives to provide care in areas with high maternal health needs.

• The word "gender" was replaced with the word "sex" in the Nurse Corps LRP application to comply with the EO 14168.

• Upon further review of the Nurse Corps LRP application, it was determined that the Disadvantaged Background Form is redundant as this information is already captured in the Nurse Corps LRP Application. Therefore, this form will be removed from the information collection. Removing this form will decrease applicant burden by 78 burden hours and reduce programmatic confusion.

2. Purpose and Use of Information Collection

The application is used to collect information about the individual to determine their eligibility, based on statute. Individuals must submit an application in order to participate in the program. The application asks for personal, professional, educational, and financial information required to determine the applicant's eligibility to participate in the Nurse Corps LRP. An Employment Verification Form verifies the applicant’s name and address of the Critical Shortage Facility or eligible, accredited school of nursing where they will serve their service commitment, which must be completed by the appropriate official or authorized point of contact at the Critical shortage Facility or school of nursing. This information collection is used by the Nurse Corps program to make award decisions about Nurse Corps LRP applicants and to monitor a participant’s compliance with the program’s service requirements.

If this information is not collected, HRSA will not be able to ensure that eligible applicants with the greatest financial need are awarded loan repayment if it is unable to collect applicant financial and educational data. Furthermore, it will not be able to confirm that the applicant is working in a Critical Shortage Facility if HRSA is unable to collect employment information at the time of application and during their service commitment.

3. Use of Improved Information Technology and Burden Reduction

This information collection activity is a web-based application, application instructions and forms are available at http://www.hrsa.gov/loanscholarships/repayment/nursing/index.html. This allows HRSA to minimize the burden on applicants where they only see questions that are relevant to the program they are applying to, import loan data from the Department of Education, and save their application progress so that they can complete it on their own schedule. 100% of the information collected involves the use of automated, electronic, mechanical (i.e., uploading digital copies) information collection techniques. All applications are collected in a system that stores personal identifiable information securely.

4. Efforts to Identify Duplication and Use of Similar Information

The information collected is specific to the applicant and unique to this program. No other source of this information is known to exist for completion of the application and monitoring forms.

5. Impact on Small Businesses or Other Small Entities

The information collection will not have a significant impact on small entities.

6. Consequences of Collecting the Information Less Frequently

This program has a yearly application cycle, so it is necessary to collect this information from each year’s applicants. If not selected, the applicant may reapply in the next yearly cycle. The statute includes eligibility requirements, and in the absence of this information HRSA would not be able to determine an individual’s eligibility and the Nurse Corps LRP could not make any awards. In addition, the monitoring process for compliance with contractual requirements necessitates semi-annual employment verification. The consequence of less frequent monitoring is reduced oversight and the potential for funds to go to participants who should not receive them.

7. Special Circumstances Relating to the Guidelines of 5 CFR 1320.5

This information collection fully complies with 5 CFR 1320.5(d)(2). We do not fully comply with the SPD-15 standards by not including all race/ethnicity categories. This data collection needs to align with similar collections of data (e.g., health professions program application/progress report data), and making a change would skew the data.

8. Comments in Response to the Federal Register Notice/Outside Consultation

A 60-day Federal Register Notice was published in the Federal Register on May 15, 2025, vol. 90, No. 93; pp. 20679-80. There were no public comments. A 30-day Federal Register Notice was published in the Federal Register on August 13, 2025, vol. 90, No. 154; pp. 38982-83.

HRSA receives feedback during the application period from both applicants and application reviewers. HRSA staff conducted a review of this feedback, which has resulted in minimal modifications. 

9. Explanation of any Payment/Gift to Respondents

Respondents will not receive any payments or gifts.

10. Assurance of Confidentiality Provided to Respondents

Data collected on the individual Nurse Corps LRP application and monitoring forms is housed in a system of record under the Privacy Act of 1974 - the “Public Health Service and National Health Service Corps Health Care Provider Records System” (09-15-0037). Information provided on each selected application will be maintained for at least 2 years and up to 10 years. This is necessary to permit the monitoring of Nurse Corps LRP participants through the completion of the Program’s service commitments. Data will be kept private to the extent allowed by law.

11. Justification for Sensitive Questions

The applicant’s Social Security number is required for purposes of reporting the amount of loan repayments received by an individual to the Internal Revenue Service. It is also required by the Debt Collection Act of 1982, to permit collection of claims resulting from a participant’s breach of the Nurse Corps LRP contract.

The applicant’s annual gross salary and outstanding educational loan balances are required to determine whether the applicant meets the statutory funding preference. The loan information is also needed to determine whether the loans are eligible for repayment. The Right to Financial Privacy Act (RFPA), Public Law 95-630, regulates the Federal Government's access to the financial records of individuals maintained by a financial institution. The financial information collected through the application complies with the RFPA requirements for customer authorization for disclosure of financial records.

The applicant’s banking information is necessary to electronically transmit loan repayments to the individual’s financial institution, as required by the Debt Collection Improvement Act of 1996 and 31 CFR Parts 208 and 210.

The Nurse Corps LRP obtains a Credit Bureau Report (CBR) as part of the application review process. The CBR is cross-referenced with the financial information provided by the applicant and is also used to verify whether the applicant has a Federal judgment lien. The Privacy Act Notification Statement in the Application and Program Guidance advises applicants that a CBR will be obtained.

12. Estimates of Annualized Hour and Cost Burden

12. A. Estimated Annualized Burden Hours

The estimates of reporting burden for Applications are as follows;

Form Name	Number of Respondents	Number of Responses per Respondent	Total Responses	Average Burden per Response (in hours)	Total Burden Hours
Nurse Corps LRP Application*	6,450	1	6,450	2.00	12,900
Authorization to Release Information Form**	6,450	1	6,450	0.10	645
Employment Verification Form**	6,450	1	6,450	0.10	645
Confirmation of Interest Form	989	1	989	0.20	198
Total for Applicants	6,450	------------------	20,339	-------------	14,388

_{*The burden hours associated with this instrument account for both new and continuation applications.}

_{**The same respondents are completing these instruments.}

The estimates of reporting for Participants are as follows:

Form Name	Number of Respondents	Number of Responses per Respondent	Total Responses	Average Burden per Response (in hours)	Total Burden Hours
Participant Semi-Annual In Service Verification Form	989	2	1,978	0.50	989
Nurse Corps CSF Verification Form	989	1	989	0.10	99
Nurse Corps Nurse Faculty Employment Verification Form	388	1	388	0.20	78
Total for Participants	989	____________	3,355	_______	1,166
Total for Applicants and Participants	7,439	___________	23,694	________	15,554*

_{*The total burden hour estimate is a combination of burden hours for both applicants and participants.}

12. B. Estimated Annualized Burden Costs

Type of Respondent	Total Burden Hours	Hourly Wage Rate (x2)1	Total Respondent Costs
Registered Nurses (29-1141)	5,421	$90.00	$487,890.00
Nurse Practitioners (29-1171)	6,595	$124.24	$819,362.80
Nurse Anesthetist (29-1151)	994	$214.62	$213,332.28
Nurse Midwife (29-1161)	647	$123.84	$80,124.48
Nurse Faculty (25-1072)	1,897	$77.67*	$147,339.99
Total	15,554		$1,748,049.55

*Based on Nurse Faculty data at https://www.bls.gov/oes/2023/may/oes251072.htm. Median hourly rates calculated by using Median annual salary divided by 2080. Nurse faculty data for 2024 is not currently available.

Basis for estimates:

Each applicant may only complete one online application per fiscal year. The application consists of eligibility requirements (license, citizenship, service agreement, employment); general information (name, address, school attended, degree(s) obtained, employment, etc.); educational loan information to be considered (average of 3 documents per applicant), plus any necessary supporting documentation.

In 2024, 34 percent of awardees were Registered Nurses; 42.5 percent of awardees were APRNs, including Nurse Practitioners; 6 percent of awardees were Certified Nurse Anesthetists; 4.16 percent of awardees were Certified Nurse Midwives; and 12.2 percent of awardees were Nurse Faculty. We made an assumption that the applicant pool mix matched the awardee mix.

13. Estimates of other Total Annual Cost Burden to Respondents or Recordkeepers/Capital Costs

All equipment and software are internally maintained at the Nurse Corps LRP as part of its normal business practice. There will be no operation or maintenance costs to lenders; all information is maintained for usual business purposes. Other than their time, there is no cost to respondents.

14. Annualized Cost to Federal Government

Instrument	Base Pay Rate (adjusted for overhead costs)2	Project Time per FTE	Number of FTEs	Total Annual Cost
Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program Application	$118,304 GS-12, Step 6	1.0	10	$1,774,560

Processing of the Nurse Corps LRP applications and supporting forms is handled internally through the BHW Business Management Information System Solution (BMISS) and by Nurse Corps LRP staff. There are 10 FTEs involved in the processing of the applications. The cost for staff to process the applications and facilitate the loan repayment process for 10 GS-12, Step 6 employees at 1 full-time equivalent (FTE) rate is $1,774,560. The total estimated annual cost to the Government for the Nurse Corps LRP application and application contract is $1,774,560.

15. Explanation for Program Changes or Adjustments

The estimated total burden hours for this activity are 15,554 hours. The current burden inventory is 16,450 hours. The estimated burden hours percentage change from the current Notice of Action to the revised estimated burden hours reflects a 5.4 percent decrease. This is due to a decrease in the anticipated number of applications as well as the removal of the Disadvantaged Background Form, which is redundant, and already captured in the Nurse Corps LRP application.

16. Plans for Tabulation, Publication, and Project Time Schedule

The Nurse Reinvestment Act (P.L. 107-205) requires annual reports to Congress regarding participant demographics, service sites, default information, etc. These reports provide information tables as well as analysis of trends and evaluation of the program.

Statistical data related to the Nurse Corps LRP has been published and can be obtained at the following website: https://data.hrsa.gov/data/download?data=SCH#SCH (select “BHW Program Applicant and Award Data” and “NC LRP Program Applicant Metrics” by fiscal year dropdown menus). Data is published at the end of each fiscal year upon reconciliation of awards data on October 1st.

17. Reason(s) Display of OMB Expiration Date is Inappropriate

The OMB number and Expiration date will be displayed on every page of every form/instrument.

18. Exceptions to Certification for Paperwork Reduction Act Submissions

There are no exceptions to the certification.

1 Hourly Wage Rate based on the United States Department of Labor, Bureau of Labor Statistics - https://data.bls.gov/oes/#/industry/000000. Hourly median wage doubled to account for benefits.

2 Table updated based off of OPM Salary Table 2025-DCB https://www.opm.gov/policy-data-oversight/pay-leave/salaries-wages/salary-tables/pdf/2025/DCB.pdf. Salary multiplied by 1.5 to account for overhead costs.

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