Election Law - Unaffiliated Voters - Open Primary Elections
HB0496 alters Maryland’s income tax credits for health care practitioners who serve as uncompensated preceptors in nursing education programs. The bill lowers the minimum community-based clinical training requirement from 100 hours to 90 hours per rotation for both nurse practitioner preceptors and preceptors for licensed practical nurse, registered nurse, and advanced practice registered nurse students. It keeps the existing requirement that the preceptor work in an area identified as having a health care workforce shortage.
The bill also restructures the nurse practitioner preceptorship credit by creating a dedicated Nurse Practitioner Preceptorship Tax Credit Fund and adding a $15 renewal fee for nurse practitioners holding advanced practice registered nurse certification, with those fee revenues directed to the fund. It sets the credit at $1,000 per qualifying student rotation, caps the annual credit certificate amount at $10,000 per taxpayer, and limits total annual certificates to the lesser of fund balance or $100,000. The Department of Health would administer the program, issue certificates, report annually, and adopt regulations.
HB0496 would amend the Tax-General Article and the Health Occupations Article to expand and finance Maryland’s preceptor tax credit program for nursing and physician preceptors. It changes eligibility thresholds, creates a new special fund, and imposes a separate renewal fee on certain nurse practitioners to support the credit. The bill affects nurse practitioners, licensed physicians, licensed practical nurses, registered nurses, advanced practice registered nurses, the Maryland Department of Health, and the Comptroller, while also modifying the sunset/termination structure for the existing credit provisions.
Based on the bill text and the absence of recorded committee testimony or votes in the provided materials, the measure appears to be a workforce-support bill with a generally positive policy orientation toward expanding clinical training capacity in shortage areas. Its structure suggests support for incentives to recruit and retain preceptors, especially in nursing education. No explicit opposition or recorded controversy is shown in the provided context.
The main policy questions raised by the bill are the reduced hour requirement, the new $15 renewal fee on nurse practitioners with APRN certification, and the funding mechanism that ties the credit to a capped special fund. Potential points of contention include whether lowering the rotation-hour threshold is sufficient to maintain training quality, whether the fee is an appropriate way to finance the credit, and whether the annual cap and first-come, first-served administration could limit access for eligible preceptors. No specific opposing stakeholders or committee objections are included in the provided record.