NHSC Teaching Credit

The National Health Service Corps (NHSC) allows you to receive service credit for time you spend teaching, within certain guidelines.

Guidelines for Full-Time NHSC Clinicians

All full-time NHSC clinicians may spend up to eight hours per week teaching in the clinical setting at your NHSC­‐approved site. You may consider these eight hours a part of the minimum 40 patient care hours at the NHSC-approved site.

If you are a full-time NHSC clinician at a Teaching Health Center (THC) through the Teaching Health Centers Graduate Medical Education (THCGME) Program, you can count up to 20 hours per week spent teaching towards your 40-hour minimum weekly service commitment.

• Note: We only allow full-time NHSC clinicians at HRSA-approved THCs to claim the THC service credit. If a site was eligible but not approved as a THC, it does not qualify for the 20-hour THC service credit.

Guidelines for Half-Time NHSC Clinicians

All half-time clinicians must conduct teaching within the overall allotment for teaching and practice-related administrative activities. This must not exceed four hours of the minimum 20 hours per week. This also applies if you are serving half-­time at a THC.

To qualify as teaching, you must provide clinical education to students/clinicians in your area of expertise at your NHSC-approved site.

Clinical education may be:

• Part of an accredited clinical training program;
• Required clinical supervision of a student/clinician (so that student/clinician may receive a license under state law).

• Note: If you provide the service while a student/clinician observes, you should treat the activity as clinical care, not teaching, since you are treating the patient.