PUBLIC NOTICE
Weekly Technical Assistance option - for EMPLOYERS: How to Use SHARP-3
Special Technical Assistance: Weekly Zoom Call for Employers
Statewide Zoom videoconferences are scheduled for especially for EMPLOYERS to learn ways to maximize your use of SHARP-3. This optional Zoom conference occurs every Thursday from 11:00a-12:00 from January 21st to July 8th (except Feb 4th).
Join Zoom Meeting
https://zoom.us/j/95446360138?pwd=SG50REZlTWcwM0ZRRW9NMlI0ZnlvZz09
Meeting ID: 954 4636 0138
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. 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. 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.
Technical Assistance: SHARP-3 Manual
In addition, the program has issued its new SHARP-3 Guidelines Manual. Anyone can get an electronic copy of the Manual immediately upon request. Please submit your request via our easy-to-use web-portal by clickingà SHARP Inquiry Submission Form.
The SHARP-3 guidelines manual presents the follow program topics:
| Section | Topic |
| 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 | MONITORING & EVALUATION |
More Information
SHARP Website, and DHSS Public Notices
The SHARP website will present all guidance regarding how to complete your application. See: http://dhss.alaska.gov/dph/healthplanning/pages/sharp.
Submit Inquiries
Pose any inquiries about this opportunity through SHARP’s web-portal. Do this by clickingà SHARP Inquiry Submission Form.
Using the SHARP Inquiry Submission Form has the added advantage of automatically registering you with SHARP, which ensures that you will also receive program updates.