The Health Resources and Services Administration received many substantive comments on the proposed rule, Designation of Medically Underserved Populations and Health Professional Shortage Areas, and will consider these comments carefully. Based on a preliminary review of the comments, it appears that HRSA will need to make a number of changes in the proposed rule. Instead of issuing a final regulation as the next step, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services will issue a new Notice of Proposed Rulemaking for further review and public comment prior to issuing a final rule. (Federal Register Notice, 7-23-2008)

• More about the Proposed Rule

• The Shortage Designation Branch in the HRSA Bureau of Health Professions National Center for Health Workforce Analysis develops shortage designation criteria and uses them to decide whether or not a geographic area or population group is a Health Professional Shortage Area or a Medically Underserved Area or Population.

• More than 34 federal programs depend on the shortage designation to determine eligibility or as a funding preference.

• About 20 percent of  the U.S. population resides in primary medical care Health Professional Shortage Areas. 

Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) may have shortages of primary medical care, dental or mental health providers and may be urban or rural areas, population groups or medical or other public facilities.

• Search the HPSA data base (updated weekly)
• Geographic Eligibility Advisor for Medicare HPSA Bonus Payments
• Automatic HPSA scores by category (Excel/xls, 10/02/2006) | Automatic HPSA scoring process summary
• HPSA data base dictionary of terms and abbreviations
• HPSA designation criteria
• Primary medical care HPSA designation criteria
• Dental HPSA designation criteria
• Primary medical care/dental HPSA guidelines 
• Mental health HPSA designation criteria
• Mental health HPSA guidelines
• How to apply for HPSA designation

Medically Underserved Areas (MUA) may be a whole county or a group of contiguous counties, a group of county or civil divisions or a group of urban census tracts in which residents have a shortage of personal health services. 

Medically Underserved Populations (MUPs) may include groups of persons who face economic, cultural or linguistic barriers to health care.

• Search the MUA/MUP data base (live, updated continuously)
• Guidelines for MUA/MUP designation
• MUA/P data dictionary

For shortage designation inquiries, please call 1-888-275-4772. Press option 1, then option 2 or contact the Shortage Designation Branch:
sdb@hrsa.gov
301-594-0816
301-443-4370 fax
5600 Fishers Lane
Room 8C-26
Rockville, MD 20857