For purposes of this article, the following definitions shall apply:

(a) “Account” means the Medically Underserved Account for Physicians established within the Health Professions Education Fund pursuant to this article.

(b) “Foundation” means the Health Professions Education Foundation.

(c) “Fund” means the Health Professions Education Fund.

(d) “Medi-Cal threshold languages” means primary languages spoken by limited-English-proficient (LEP) population groups meeting a numeric threshold of 3,000, eligible LEP Medi-Cal beneficiaries residing in a county, 1,000 Medi-Cal eligible LEP beneficiaries residing in a single ZIP Code, or 1,500 LEP Medi-Cal beneficiaries residing in two contiguous ZIP Codes.

(e) “Medically underserved area” means an area defined as a health professional shortage area in Part 5 of Subchapter A of Chapter 1 of Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations or an area of the state where unmet priority needs for physicians exist as determined by the California Healthcare Workforce Policy Commission pursuant to Section 128225.

(f) “Medically underserved population” means the Medi-Cal program, Healthy Families Program, and uninsured populations.

(g) “Office” means the Office of Statewide Health Planning and Development (OSHPD).

(h) “Physician Volunteer Program” means the Physician Volunteer Registry Program established by the Medical Board of California.

(i) “Practice setting,” for the purposes of this article only, means either of the following:

(1) A community clinic as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 1204 and subdivision (c) of Section 1206, a clinic owned or operated by a public hospital and health system, or a clinic owned and operated by a hospital that maintains the primary contract with a county government to fulfill the county’s role pursuant to Section 17000 of the Welfare and Institutions Code, which is located in a medically underserved area and at least 50 percent of whose patients are from a medically underserved population.

(2) A physician owned and operated medical practice setting that provides primary care located in a medically underserved area and has a minimum of 50 percent of patients who are uninsured, Medi-Cal beneficiaries, or beneficiaries of another publicly funded program that serves patients who earn less than 250 percent of the federal poverty level.

(j) “Primary specialty” means family practice, internal medicine, pediatrics, or obstetrics/gynecology.

(k) “Program” means the Steven M. Thompson Physician Corps Loan Repayment Program.

(l) “Selection committee” means a minimum three-member committee of the board, that includes a member that was appointed by the Medical Board of California.

(Amended by Stats. 2013, Ch. 378, Sec. 1. (AB 565) Effective January 1, 2014.)