PUBLIC NOTICE
SHARP-3: New Health Care Professionals Workforce Enhancement Program
The Alaska Department of Health and Social Services (DHSS) announces the opening of SHARP-3, our newest support-for-service opportunity for healthcare practitioners. Known as SHARP-3, the Alaska State Legislature has established the Health Care Professionals Workforce Enhancement Program (Ch 115 SLA 19) (AS 18.29). The SHARP-3 regulations are done, and thus SHARP-3 opens on January 4th, 2021. This public notice constitutes SHARP’s solicitation for upcoming applicants.
Support-for-Service
Alaska’s SHARP Program uses a support-for-service strategy of providing financial support, in addition to standard wage and benefit, to health practitioners who provide care to our population, and especially to persons who are underserved. In SHARP-3, this financial support is in the form of either education loan repayment or direct incentive. The support-for-service payments are issued quarterly, and only after the program has received (1) a specified Quarterly Work Report, and (2) the employer’s payment of billed quarterly costs.
Underserved Populations
SHARP defines Alaska’s underserved population as composed of individuals who (1) are uninsured; (2) receive or are eligible to receive medical assistance (e.g. Medicaid); or (3) receive or are eligible to receive health care benefits directly, through insurance (e.g. Medicare), or through other means, from a plan or program funded directly, in whole or in part, by the federal government (e.g. Indian Health Service beneficiaries), except for the federal employee health benefits program under 5 U.S.C. 8903.
What is SHARP?
Alaska’s SHARP Program is a public-private partnership that works to improve access to healthcare throughout the state by enhancing the recruitment, retention, and distribution of practitioners. SHARP especially focuses on the provision of healthcare to persons in designated healthcare service shortage areas. To accomplish this, SHARP provides specified support-for-service payments (education loan repayment; or direct incentive) to the program-selected practitioners. The practitioners may be in medical, dental, behavioral health fields, or related disciplines. The intent of SHARP is to help address the worsening shortage of healthcare practitioners in Alaska by increasing the number and improving the distribution of healthcare practitioners who provide direct patient care, and other workers who support that effort.
What is SHARP-3?
SHARP-3 was established in May 2019 by the Alaska Legislature (AS 18.29) as the “Health Care Professionals Workforce Enhancement Program.” The intent of
SHARP-3 is to increase the availability of health care services throughout the state, and especially to individuals who are underserved, or in health care professional shortage areas or in rural locales. SHARP-3 is expected to help expand the number and distribution of a wide variety of practitioners. Important differences between our traditional (and ongoing) SHARP-1 component and the new SHARP-3 is that SHARP-1 is only provides education loan repayment and only for licensed primary care clinicians (largely) working as outpatient generalists, and, only for those located in federal Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs). However, SHARP-3 allows for a much broader range of practitioner occupations, practice settings and locales.
SHARP-3 is the third state-operated support-for-service program effort, and was created by unanimous legislative passage of SB-93 in May 2019, which became law (AS 18.29) on August 1st, 2019. The regulations were signed by the Lt. Governor on 11/24/20 and became effective 12/25/20. In particular, SHARP-3 features (a) advanced blended funding; (b) reference to federal law (PL 111-148, Sec 10908) that discusses tax exemption for education loan repayment; (c) pre-authorization of registered employers; and (d) an expanded range of possible financial contributors.
APPLICATION
Register with SHARP
All practitioners and all employers interested in participating in SHARP are urged to register with the program. Do this by clicking on à SHARP Inquiry Submission Form. Once there, fill out the presented form. SHARP can thus send you any forthcoming program updates.
Application Availability
Applications forms for both practitioners and employers will be available from Monday 1/4/21 at 9:00 am (AT) and onward. All guidance regarding how to receive and complete your application will be posted at http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/healthplanning/pages/sharp.
Application Date
The date of submission (within the eligible range) is not relevant in the prioritization process. SHARP does not use a “first come, first served” approach for either the review and/or recommendation of applicants.
Practitioner Application
The Practitioner Application has two parts: (1) the Practitioner Application per se; and (b) the Loan & Lender form (if practitioner is seeking education loan repayment benefit). Practitioners interested in SHARP-3 participation must apply regardless of whether such persons have applied for other SHARP opportunities in the past. All guidance regarding how to receive and complete your application will be posted 1/4/21
at http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/healthplanning/pages/sharp.
Employer Application
The Employer Application has two parts: (1) the Organization Application form; and (b) the Position Application form, one position application required for each occupation-type requested. Employers that seek to participate in SHARP-3 must apply regardless of whether such have applied for other SHARP opportunities in the past. All guidance regarding how to receive and complete your application will be posted 1/4/21 at http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/healthplanning/pages/sharp.
Practitioners and Employers Applying Separately
SHARP allows employers and practitioners to apply separately. Parties that want to participate but who have not yet found a “match-up” may still apply. Indeed, this may help employers and practitioners to find a match. However, the eventual actual participation in SHARP requires a signed three-way service contract, the parties of which being the State, the employer, and the practitioner.
Applications are No-Cost
SHARP does not charge either the practitioner or the employer for applying. No other cost(s) are anticipated to result from this application process. Further, under no circumstance will SHARP pay for any cost of application submission.
Selection Process
The SHARP program will determine basic eligibilities and will then forwards eligible applicant data to Alaska’s SHARP Council monthly. The council’s admissions committee reviews selected data regarding all eligible applications, and may thus issue recommendation(s), which are related to eventual practitioner admittance(s).
The committee will convene monthly in publicly noticed meetings to review and issue recommendations regarding each constituted monthly pool of eligible applicants. The review and recommendations process is done via blind case-code, such that no individual names nor demographic aspects are discussed. On those occasions when funding is limited, SHARP reviews all participants through the standard competitive process. The Council’s recommendations are forward via public resolution(s) to the SHARP program for determination and ensuing contract offer(s), if any.
MORE INFORMATION
Submitting Inquiries
Please pose all inquiries about this opportunity via our web-portal. Do this by clicking SHARP Inquiry Submission Form. Doing so has the added advantage of registering your interest SHARP-3 with the program. This allows us to be able to send you updates.
Technical Assistance: Weekly Calls
Statewide Zoom videoconferences are scheduled for all interested parties to learn about this SHARP-3 opportunity. All interested parties are asked to use these scheduled weekly Zoom videoconferences to pose their questions. These videoconferences are wholly optional. In general, content repeats (but also with question-&-answer) on each Friday from 11:00a-12:00 (AK Time), from January 8th through at least March 26th, 2021.
Join ANY of these Zoom Meetings by clicking: https://zoom.us/j/96015031197?pwd=L1NwUlFrcVpZQVJRc0t4dDdCTFdkdz09
The Meeting ID: 960 1503 1197
Technical Assistance: SHARP-3 Manual
The program is issuing a new SHARP-3 guidelines manual, available as of 1/4/21. Anyone can obtain an electronic copy upon request. Please submit your request via our web-portal by clicking SHARP Inquiry Submission Form.
The SHARP-3 guidelines manual presents the follow program topics, by section:
1 PUBLIC NOTICE
2 APPLICATION
3 MORE INFORMATION
4 EMPLOYERS
5 POSITION
6 PRACTITIONERS
7 COUNCIL
8 CONTRACTS
9 CONTRACT TERMINATION
10 RETENTION
11 FISCAL ASPECTS
12 LOAN & LENDER
13 MONITORING & EVALUATION
SHARP Website, and DHSS Public Notices
Beginning 1/4/21, the SHARP website will present all guidance regarding how to complete your application. See: http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/healthplanning/pages/sharp.
In addition, principal program updates will also be posted to the department’s DHSS Public Notices website. See: https://aws.state.ak.us/OnlinePublicNotices/default.aspx
Disability Accommodation
If you are a persons with a disability that requires special accommodation to order to apply, please contact Robert Sewell, SHARP Director, at robert.sewell@alaska.gov or via phone 907-465-4065. Please do so no later than five days before the accommodation is required to ensure that the needed accommodation(s) can be provided.