Section 581.100  Definitions

"Act" means the Loan Repayment Assistance for Physicians Act [110 ILCS 949].

"Administrative law judge" shall have the meaning ascribed in the Department's Practice and Procedure in Administrative Hearings.

"Applicant" means a person who submits an application to the Department to receive a physician loan repayment assistance grant.

"Business day" means Monday through Friday.  It does not include a federal or State government declared holiday, Saturday or Sunday.

"Calendar day" means all days in a month or prescribed time frame.  It includes weekends and federal or State government declared holidays.

"Commercial lending institution" means a bank, credit union or financial company that makes loans.

"Department" means the Department of Public Health. (Section 10 of the Act)

"Educational loans" means higher education student loans that a person has incurred in attending a registered professional physician education program, including a medical school or a chiropractic college or institution.  (Section 10 of the Act)

"Full-time practice" means maintaining office hours for patient care that equal or exceed the mean number of office hours and face to face patient visits per week reported by physicians, by specialty, and published in the American Medical Association's "Socioeconomic Characteristics of Medical Practice, 2002", incorporated by reference in Section 581.110.

"Grant" means funds awarded under the Act.

"Grant agreement" means the agreement entered into between the Department and any person or entity for obligation, capital expenditure or use for a specific purpose.

"Grantee" means a person or entity which may use grant funds (Section 2(c) of the Illinois Grant Funds Recovery Act).

"Grant funds" means public funds dispensed by the Department to any person or entity for obligation, expenditure or use for a specific purpose. (Section 2(b) of the Illinois Grant Funds Recovery Act)

"Grant period" means the duration of the loan repayment benefit, which is one year.

"Illinois resident" means a person who has been a resident of Illinois for at least one year prior to applying for loan repayment assistance and is a citizen or lawful permanent resident of the United States.

"Lawful permanent resident" means a person who is not a citizen of the United States but who resides in the United States under legally recognized requirements and lawfully records his/her permanent residence with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security.

"Metropolitan statistical area" or "MSA" means one or more adjacent counties that have at least one urban core area of at least 50,000 population, plus adjacent territory that has a high degree of social and economic integration with the core, as measured by commuting ties.

"Physician" means a person licensed under the Medical Practice Act of 1987 [225 ILCS 60]. (Section 10 of the Act)

"Program" means the educational loan repayment assistance program for physicians established by the Department under the Act. (Section 10 of the Act)

"Registered professional physician education program" means any accredited private or public nonprofit school that provides education leading to a doctor of medicine or doctor of osteopathy degree.

"Rural" means any geographic area not located in a U.S. Census Bureau Metropolitan Statistical Area; or a county located within a Metropolitan Statistical Area but having a population of 60,000 or less; or a geographic area located within a Metropolitan Statistical Area but having a population of 2,500 or less.

"Service term" means the length of time that the physician is obligated to serve as a physician in Illinois as the result of receiving loan repayment funds from the Department.

"Urban" means any geographic area that does not meet the definition of "rural" in this Section.

(Source:  Amended at 48 Ill. Reg. 2647, effective January 30, 2024)