Board of Healthcare Workforce seeks program consolidation and GME adjustments, and renames loan-repayment program

Chet Bassin, executive director of the Georgia Board of Healthcare Workforce, described the board's FY26 budget items and administrative structure to the Appropriations Subcommittee on Health. Bassin summarized that the board is "less than 2% administrative of our total budget" and walked through multiple line items in the governor's recommendations.

Key elements described: - Administrative item: a small, statewide insurance premium adjustment (section 17.110.1) that increases agency premiums by a modest amount. - Graduate medical education (GME): a combination of one-time start-up funding previously removed and an increase tied to expansion of residency slots (a line described as funding for 75 new residency programs), plus a reduction tied to a change in the FMAP formula. - Mercer School of Medicine: elimination of one-time matching funds tied to private fundraising for a primary-care scholarship and reduction for Valdosta campus match; offset by an increase for the sixth year of a seven-year Columbus campus plan. - Physicians-for-Rural-Areas program: recommended statutory/name change to "Georgia Board Healthcare Workforce Healthcare Practitioner Loan Repayment Program" to reflect dentists, PAs, nurse faculty and nurse practitioners; plus a $250,000 transfer from undergraduate medical education to consolidate loan repayment funds under a single administrative bucket for efficiency.

Bassin said the consolidation is intended to streamline administration of multiple loan-repayment lines and that the board's loan repayment programs generally prioritize clinicians who serve populations in counties of 50,000 residents or fewer. He closed with a budget summary and offered to take committee questions.