HRSA HPSA & MUA Shortage Designation Monitor

Track federal health-care shortage designations — HPSA (Health Professional Shortage Areas) and MUA/MUP (Medically Underserved Areas/Populations) — straight from HRSA's official ArcGIS feed. This actor normalizes the three HPSA disciplines plus MUA into one clean row-per-designation, then lets you filter, delta, and roll up so you get an answer instead of a raw dump.

Designations decide real money: HPSA status = Medicare telehealth originating-site reimbursement eligibility, HPSA score drives NHSC loan-repayment and J-1 / Conrad 30 waiver priority, and MUA status gates FQHC / RHC / grant eligibility. When a designation is withdrawn, that funding and eligibility can disappear — so the delta mode is a genuine recurring alert.

Who it's for

• Telehealth companies — confirm which sites/areas keep Medicare originating-site eligibility (HPSA), catch withdrawals early.
• Physician & locum recruiters / staffing — target high-HPSA-score areas for NHSC loan-repayment and J-1 waiver candidates.
• Rural hospitals & clinics — monitor their own and neighboring designations.
• FQHC / RHC grant writers — MUA/MUP status is a hard eligibility gate; verify before applying.
• Health-equity researchers & GIS teams — clean, normalized, geo-tagged shortage data by state / county / congressional district.

Example input

{
  "designationType": "HPSA",
  "discipline": "Primary Care",
  "state": "Alabama",
  "minScore": 14,
  "ruralStatus": "rural",
  "maxResults": 5000
}

Delta example (newly withdrawn/designated since a date)

{
  "designationType": "all",
  "state": "Texas",
  "sinceDate": "2026-01-01"
}

Rollup example (count + avg score by county)

{
  "designationType": "HPSA",
  "discipline": "all",
  "state": "California",
  "rollupBy": "county_fips"
}

Output fields (one row per designation)

Field	Description
source_id	HRSA HPSA/MUA source id
designation_type	HPSA or MUA
discipline	Primary Care / Mental Health / Dental, or MUA type
name	Designation / service-area name
status	Designated / Withdrawn / Proposed for Withdrawal
score	HPSA score (0-26) or MUA/IMU score (0-100)
designation_date	First designated (YYYY-MM-DD)
last_update_date	Last updated (YYYY-MM-DD)
withdrawal_date	Withdrawn date, if any
rural_status	Rural / Non-Rural
hpsa_type	HPSA facility/area type
designation_population	Population covered
pop_provider_ratio_goal	Target population-to-provider ratio
state, state_fips, county_fips, congressional_district	Geography
source_layer	ArcGIS layer id
status_change	Delta mode only: newly_designated / newly_withdrawn

In rollup mode each row is instead rollup_by, group_key, designation_count, avg_score.

Use as an MCP tool

This actor is callable by AI agents (Claude, Cursor, etc.) via mcp.apify.com. The input and output schemas are fully field-described, so an agent can chain it — e.g. "find newly withdrawn Primary Care HPSAs in Texas since Jan 2026" — and pass the normalized rows straight into a downstream tool.

Coverage

• HPSA: Primary Care, Mental Health, Dental (three feature layers).
• MUA/MUP: Medically Underserved Areas & Populations.
• Data is national; filter by state to keep runs fast. Source: HRSA GeoPortal (gisportal.hrsa.gov), keyless. WKID 4326.

FAQ

How do I get an HPSA shortage designation dataset / API? Set designationType: "HPSA" and a state; this actor returns normalized HPSA rows with scores and dates.

How do I find newly withdrawn HPSA or MUA designations? Use delta mode: set sinceDate (e.g. 2026-01-01). Rows come back with status_change = newly_withdrawn or newly_designated.

Which areas qualify for Medicare telehealth originating-site reimbursement? Areas with an active HPSA designation; filter status: "Designated" and your state.

How do I find high-score HPSA areas for NHSC loan repayment or J-1 waivers? Set minScore (e.g. 14+) — higher HPSA scores get funding/priority.

Is a place a Medically Underserved Area (MUA/MUP)? Set designationType: "MUA" and your state; MUA status gates FQHC/RHC eligibility.

Can I count shortage areas by county or district? Yes — set rollupBy to county_fips, congressional_district, state, or discipline for counts + average score.

Notes

• Billing is a single automatic result event (per dataset item).
• Data is refreshed by HRSA; this actor always reads the live feed.