Imagine how pleased you would get when you receive the news that your employer can offset all your medical school loans. Would it not have a significant impact on your financial situation? If you are a registered nurse working at least 32 hours a week within a renowned medical facility, you can get a 60% loan repayment done by the hospital as long as you have been in employment for two years or more. Let’s start with Do Hospitals Pay Off Students Loans?
Loan repayment benefits are even better if you have worked for more than two years. On top of the 60%, the hospital goes ahead to offset an additional 25% in helping you clear your student loan.
While this repayment offer will not apply to every employment contract you will get with a medical facility. It is an excellent way for the hospital to ensure that they hire the best experts in their facilities.
One thing that would be a significant headache for you would be how to offset your loans once you have graduated.
You must have a plan, including securing your job and working on a payment plan with your employer, or stick with these loans while finding a way to make standard payments until you are done offsetting the balance. While all these sound like good plans, why not find out if your hospital is willing to help you with the loan repayment process? Hospitals can help you with your student loans.
It would be best if you considered a few factors when looking for your first job as an attending physician. They are priorities you must put on top of your list that will significantly assist you in your career advancement. They include;
Know your priorities
Before signing that contract, sit back and understand what works best for you. Narrowing down these priorities helps you immensely with your search. Have preferences that work in your favor, such as:
- Location and setting of the medical facility
- Working hours. Are they flexible?
- The mission of the organization
- Hospital population and
- Compensation, including the loan repayment program.
Understand the practice setting available
Before taking on the offer, you must know who you will practice with and how well it will work for your career. The people you have around you will contribute significantly to how much support you will get with your practice.
Start your search
If your list begins making sense to you, you can get into the next step. You may reach out to your colleagues on social platforms such as LinkedIn and find out if they could refer you or make contact with facilities close to you on whether they have an opening.
Evaluate the support of life and physician support
While this may seem like a usual practice, knowing how much support you will get and how much support the physicians offer to patients once you land the job is essential. You may also ask these crucial questions during the process of recruitment.
Evaluate the culture of the workplace
While the culture of an organization is challenging to evaluate, it can significantly affect how your work-life will be. You will not get a complete revelation of a facility’s work culture until you work there.
How do you get the hospital to pay off your student loan?
As initially mentioned, the hospital can pay off your student loan. However, the no-brainer is that it is not a guarantee that they will pay. There is no trick to making the hospital offset your student loan. All you need to do is be the type of employee they are looking for.
Times have also considerably changed, and as they do, there is more challenge in getting a hospital to pay the student loan for you. Some conditions put in writing qualify you to get this help. In addition to being a desirable employee, the hospital also looks at the working conditions.
If it gets incredibly challenging to get this benefit, you can negotiate a few terms with the hospital and have them in writing, which will assist you in getting the loan load lifted a little.
What do you do when the hospital doesn’t offset your student loan?
If you find a job with an employer unwilling to pay off your student loan, you should not despair. Having a loan can be draining, especially if large chunks of money have to be deducted from your networth for repayment.
Here are a few other alternatives that can give you relief on your loan.
VA Education Debt Reduction Program
Private employers seem to be going on the decline in helping students clear their loans. On the other hand, the Veteran Affairs seem to be making this provision more available for students.
They have a plan that helps you with repayment, called the Education Reduction Program. Here is an alternative when your employer won’t help take the debt load off your shoulder.
Public Service Loan Forgiveness
This is a second alternative when your employer doesn’t help you pay off your student loan. If you are working full time, you need to have at least 120 payments that have been made on time and a direct federal loan to qualify for relief by this program.
You must also be working for a qualified employer in the field. The program, however, does not work for everyone. Payments are all based on your income, and high physician incomes attract, averaging $243000 will attract a higher deduction amount. If your income is less than this amount, you suffer greatly financially, but the program still uses it as the bare minimum.
Instead of repaying your loans while still struggling financially, you can use the two options.
- Refinance your loan
- Use a standard federal loan repayment
Conclusion
Therefore, having a student loan and not being able to repay it can be daunting. That is a plus if you are fortunate enough to find an employer willing to help you offset the bills. However, if you do not get this provision of getting loan forgiveness, you can use several other alternatives available for loan repayment.
