Understanding the Medical Profession - Physician's Assistant (Part 3)

Level 5 - Ivy League

Welcome back! Previously, we discussed the specific educational considerations for becoming a physician’s assistant, with a focus on the application and preparation process. If you missed it, you can find it below:

Understanding The Medical Profession - Physician's Assistants (Part 1)

In the second installment, we discussed the compensation for the PA role and projected growth over the next decade.

If you missed it, you can read about it here:

Understanding the Medical Profession - Physician's Assistant (Part 2)

In this final installment, we will focus on:

• Financial incentives and loan forgiveness

• Additional considerations for anyone entering the PA field

• Some initial Q&A from the first two articles

Part 1: Loan Forgiveness for PA

Although PA salaries are relatively high, the debt for them is relatively high as well. The median student loan debt for physician assistants is $112,500. That is equivalent to about one year’s salary for PAs. Unless you are independently wealthy, you will undoubtedly be concerned about the debt you take on.

Fortunately, there are several loan forgiveness programs available to PAs.

Federal Loan Forgiveness

If you have federal loans, you can qualify for loan forgiveness through the following programs:

Public Service Loan Forgiveness

The Public Service Loan Forgiveness (PSLF) program was designed to help student loan borrowers working in the public sector. If you work at an eligible nonprofit or government agency, you could get your federal loans forgiven after making 120 payments.

This loan forgiveness comes with no tax consequences. Normally, forgiven loans are counted as income for tax purposes, but loan forgiveness under the program is not considered taxable income.

The only negative on this program is that the forgiveness for it is relatively low.

National Health Service Corps Loan Repayment Program:

If you are a PA, you can qualify for up to $50,000 in loan repayment if you work in a Health Professional Shortage Area (HPSA). An HPSA is a region, population, or facility that is deemed to have a shortage of healthcare professionals.