I
119THCONGRESS
1
STSESSION H. R. 935
To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for a health care
workforce innovation program.
IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
FEBRUARY4, 2025
Mr. G
ARBARINO(for himself, Ms. SCHRIER, Mr. VALADAO, and Ms. CRAIG)
introduced the following bill; which was referred to the Committee on En-
ergy and Commerce
A BILL
To amend the Public Health Service Act to provide for
a health care workforce innovation program.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-1
tives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, 2
SECTION 1. SHORT TITLE. 3
This Act may be cited as the ‘‘Health Care Workforce 4
Innovation Act of 2025’’. 5
SEC. 2. HEALTH CARE WORKFORCE INNOVATION PRO-6
GRAM. 7
Section 755(b) of the Public Health Service Act (42 8
U.S.C. 294e(b)) is amended by adding at the end the fol-9
lowing: 10
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‘‘(5)(A) Supporting and developing new innova-1
tive, community-driven approaches for the education 2
and training of allied health professionals, including 3
those described in subparagraph (F)(i), with an em-4
phasis on expanding the supply of such professionals 5
located in, and meeting the needs of, underserved 6
communities and rural areas. Grants or contracts 7
under this paragraph shall be awarded through a 8
new program (referred to as the ‘Health Care Work-9
force Innovation Program’ or in this paragraph as 10
the ‘Program’). 11
‘‘(B) To be eligible to receive a grant or con-12
tract under the Program an entity shall— 13
‘‘(i) be a Federally qualified health center 14
(as defined in section 1905(l)(2)(B) of the So-15
cial Security Act), a State-level association or 16
other consortium that represents and is com-17
prised of Federally qualified health centers, a 18
certified rural health clinic that meets the re-19
quirements of section 334, or an accredited, 20
nonprofit post-secondary vocational program 21
that trains allied health professionals to work in 22
primary care settings; and 23
‘‘(ii) submit to the Secretary an application 24
that, at a minimum, contains— 25
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‘‘(I) a description of how all trainees 1
will be trained in accredited training pro-2
grams either directly or through partner-3
ships with public or nonprofit private enti-4
ties, such as schools of allied health; 5
‘‘(II) a description of the community- 6
driven health care workforce innovation 7
model to be carried out under the grant or 8
contract, including the specific allied health 9
professions to be funded; 10
‘‘(III) the geographic service area that 11
will be served, including quantitative data, 12
if available, showing that such particular 13
area faces a shortage of allied health pro-14
fessionals and lacks access to health care; 15
‘‘(IV) a description of the benefits 16
provided to each health care professional 17
trained under the proposed model during 18
the education and training phase; 19
‘‘(V) a description of the experience 20
that the applicant has in the recruitment, 21
retention, and promotion of the well-being 22
of workers and volunteers; 23
‘‘(VI) a description of how the fund-24
ing awarded under the Program will sup-25
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plement rather than supplant existing 1
funding; 2
‘‘(VII) a description of the scalability 3
and replicability of the community-driven 4
approach to be funded under the Program; 5
‘‘(VIII) a description of the infra-6
structure, outreach and communication 7
plan, and other program support costs re-8
quired to operationalize the proposed 9
model; and 10
‘‘(IX) any other information, as the 11
Secretary determines appropriate. 12
‘‘(C)(i) An entity shall use amounts received 13
under a grant or contract awarded under the Pro-14
gram to carry out the innovative, community-driven 15
model described in the application under subpara-16
graph (B). Such amounts may be used for launching 17
new or expanding existing innovative health care 18
professional partnerships, including the following 19
specific uses: 20
‘‘(I) Establishing or expanding a partner-21
ship between such entity and 1 or more high 22
schools, accredited public or nonprofit private 23
vocational-technical schools, accredited public or 24
nonprofit private 2-year colleges, area health 25
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education centers, and entities with clinical set-1
tings for the provision of education and training 2
opportunities not available at the grantee’s fa-3
cilities. 4
‘‘(II) Providing education and training 5
programs to improve allied health professionals’ 6
readiness in settings that serve underserved 7
communities and rural areas; encouraging stu-8
dents from underserved and disadvantaged 9
backgrounds and former patients to consider 10
careers in health care, and better reflecting and 11
meeting community needs; providing education 12
and training programs for individuals to work 13
in patient-centered, team-based, community- 14
driven health care models that include integra-15
tion with other clinical practitioners and train-16
ing in cultural and linguistic competence; pro-17
viding pre-apprenticeship and apprenticeship 18
programs for health care technical, support, 19
and entry-level occupations, particularly for 20
those enrolled in dual or concurrent enrollment 21
programs; building a preceptorship training-to- 22
practice model for medical, behavioral health, 23
oral health, and public health disciplines in an 24
integrated, community-driven setting; providing 25
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and expanding internships, career ladders, and 1
development opportunities for health care pro-2
fessionals, including new and existing staff; or 3
investing in training equipment, supplies, and 4
limited renovations or retrofitting of training 5
space needed for grantees to carry out their 6
particular model. 7
‘‘(ii) Amounts received under a grant or con-8
tract awarded under the Program shall not be used 9
to support construction costs or to supplant funding 10
from existing programs that support the applicant’s 11
health workforce. 12
‘‘(iii) Models funded under the Program shall 13
be for a duration of at least 3 years. 14
‘‘(D) In awarding grants or contracts under the 15
Program, the Secretary shall give priority to appli-16
cants that will use grant or contract funds to sup-17
port workforce innovation models that increase the 18
number of individuals from underserved and dis-19
advantaged backgrounds working in such health care 20
professions, improve access to health care (including 21
medical, behavioral health and oral health) in under-22
served communities, or demonstrate that the model 23
can be replicated in other underserved communities 24
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in a cost-efficient and effective manner to achieve 1
the purposes of the Program. 2
‘‘(E) An entity that receives a grant or contract 3
under the Program shall provide periodic reports to 4
the Secretary detailing the findings and outcomes of 5
the innovative, community-driven model carried out 6
under the grant. Such reports shall contain informa-7
tion in a manner and at such times as determined 8
appropriate by the Secretary. 9
‘‘(F) In this paragraph: 10
‘‘(i) The term ‘allied health professional’ 11
includes individuals who provide clinical support 12
services, including medical assistants, dental as-13
sistants, dental hygienists, dental therapists, 14
pharmacy technicians, physical therapists, phys-15
ical therapist assistants, and health care inter-16
preters; individuals providing non-clinical sup-17
port, such as billing and coding professionals 18
and health information technology profes-19
sionals; dieticians; medical technologists; emer-20
gency medical technicians; community health 21
workers; health education specialists; health 22
care paraprofessionals; and peer support spe-23
cialists. 24
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‘‘(ii) The term ‘rural area’ has the mean-1
ing given such term by the Administrator of the 2
Health Resources and Services Administration. 3
‘‘(iii) The term ‘underserved communities’ 4
means areas, population groups, and facilities 5
designated as health professional shortage areas 6
under section 332, medically underserved areas 7
as defined under section 330I(a), or medically 8
underserved populations as defined under sec-9
tion 330(b)(3). 10
‘‘(G)(i) There are authorized to be appropriated 11
such sums as may be necessary for each of fiscal 12
years 2026 through 2028, to carry out this para-13
graph, to remain available until expended. 14
‘‘(ii) A grant or contract provided under the 15
Program shall not exceed $2,500,000 for a grant pe-16
riod.’’. 17
Æ
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