10- 144 C.M.R. ch. 504, § 2
No later than June I of each year, beginning in 1987, the Commissioner of Human Services shall designate underserved areas. Such areas shall be those Primary Care Analysis Areas, population group specialty areas, or service areas which meet the criteria for underservice defined below in Section 3. Federally designated health manpower shortage areas and medically underserved areas will automatically become state designated. The designations for underservice shall be in effect for one year from the date of designation.
The Commissioner of Human Services, in making such designations, shall utilize the Department's Cooperative Health Manpower Resource Inventories, the Primary Care Analysis Areas as defined in the most recent State Health Plan for Maine, the most current population estimates prepared by the State Planning Office or the Office of Health Planning and Development, and such other information as may be available and appropriate.
Before designating underserved areas, the Commissioner of Human Services will provide au opportunity for the Advisory Committee on Medical Education to review and comment on the list of areas be proposes to designate.
The number of physicians who any establish practices in the same underserved area in any one year to be eligible for forgiveness of their obligations will be limited to the number that is required to achieve a population to primary care physician ratio of less than 2000:1. In making his designations of underserved areas, the Commissioner will count, as part of the total number of primary care providers in an area, those primary care practitioners who were contract students and who established practices in those areas to have their loans forgiven under this Act. Those practitioners will continue to be eligible for forgiveness if they continue to practice in an area that was designated as underserved when they established their practice, regardless of whether or not the area is designated as an underserved area in subsequent years.
10- 144 C.M.R. ch. 504, § 2