Officials recently announced that healthcare providers throughout New York have awarded grants worth as much as $500,000 to doctors working in underserved areas of the state.

According to Dr. Nirav R. Shah, health commissioner of New York State, Doctors Across New York Program granted the awards in an effort to boost recruitment and retention of physicians in such areas via salary enhancements, sign-on bonuses, loan repayment and other payments to doctors. Shah added that all physicians participating in the program have committed to several years of practicing in an underserved area in New York.

“The Doctors Across New York Program is a critical program to help ensure that New Yorkers in every community in the state have access to high quality healthcare services,” Shah said. “These grants will help these institutions increase access to vital healthcare services in rural and urban areas.”

Shah added that approximately 25% of New Yorkers live in medically underserved areas. Many communities do not have enough physicians to provide specialty medicine such as psychiatry, obstetrics and gynecology.