2025 California Code
Business and Professions Code - BPC
DIVISION 2 - HEALING ARTS
CHAPTER 4 - Dentistry
ARTICLE 9.5 - California Dental Corps Loan Repayment Program
Section 1971.

1971. As used in this article:

(a) “Account” means the Dentally Underserved Account established in Section 1973, which is contained within the fund.

(b) “Board” means the Dental Board of California.

(c) “Dentally underserved area” means a geographic area eligible to be designated as having a shortage of dental professionals pursuant to Part I of Appendix B to Part 5 of Chapter 1 of Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations or an area of the state in which unmet priority needs for dentists exist as determined by the California Healthcare Workforce Policy Commission pursuant to Section 128224 of the Health and Safety Code.

(d) “Dentally underserved population” means persons without dental insurance and persons eligible for Denti-Cal who are population groups described as having a shortage of dental care professionals in Part I of Appendix B to Part 5 of Chapter 1 of Title 42 of the Code of Federal Regulations.

(e) “Fund” means the State Dentistry Fund.

(f) “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.

(g) “Program” means the California Dental Corps Loan Repayment Program.

(h) “Practice setting” means either of the following:

(1) A community clinic, as defined in subdivision (a) of Section 1204 and subdivision (c) of Section 1206 of the Health and Safety Code, 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 that is located in a dentally underserved area or at least 50 percent of whose patients are from a dentally underserved population.

(2) A dental practice or dental corporation, as defined in Section 1800, located in a dentally underserved area or at least 50 percent of whose patients are from a dentally underserved population.

(Repealed and added by Stats. 2016, Ch. 575, Sec. 4. (AB 2485) Effective September 24, 2016.)