Dear Chair Lowey, Ranking Member Granger, Chair DeLauro, and Ranking Member Cole:
On behalf of organizations dedicated to improving the health and well-being of children and
adolescents, we write to request $50 million in funding for the Pediatric Subspecialty Loan Repayment
Program (PSLRP, Section 775 of the Public Health Service Act) in the House Fiscal Year (FY) 2021 Labor,
Health and Human Services (HHS), Education and Related Agencies appropriations bill. Funding for this
program is urgently needed to get specialized care to children in their communities and to begin the
work of bolstering the pediatric provider pipeline to ensure access to care for years to come.
Currently, there is not only a shortage but also a significant disparity in the geographic distribution of
pediatric medical subspecialists, pediatric surgical specialists, child and adolescent psychiatrists, and
advanced practice professionals trained to treat children in need of specialty care. As a result, children
and their families often face long wait lists to see subspecialists, travel long distances to find needed
care, or go without needed care altogether. Recent survey data show that appointment wait times for
certain pediatric subspecialty care at children’s hospitals far exceed the prevailing benchmark of two
weeks. For instance, a child showing signs of autism spectrum disorder waited 18.7 weeks on average to
see a developmental pediatrician, delaying by months the opportunity for critical early interventions in
the case of a diagnosis.
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