(a) The amount of the comparability allowance payable for each category of physician positions established under § 595.103 must be the minimum amount necessary to deal with the recruitment and retention problem identified under § 595.104 for that category of positions. In determining this amount, the agency head must consider the relative earnings, responsibilities, expenses, workload, working conditions, conditions of employment, and personnel benefits for physicians in each category and for comparable physicians inside and outside the Federal Government.

(b) Agencies may not pay a physicians' comparability allowance in excess of $14,000 annually to a physician with 24 months or less of service as a Government physician. Agencies may not pay a physicians' comparability allowance in excess of $30,000 annually to a physician with more than 24 months of service as a Government physician.

(c) In determining length of service as a Government physician, agencies must exclude periods of leave without pay. However, agencies may credit any prior service as a Government physician, including—

(1) Prior service as a physician under sections 7401 and 7405 of title 38, United States Code; and

(2) Prior active service as a medical officer in the Commissioned Corps of the Public Health Service under title II of the Public Health Service Act (42 U.S.C. chapter 6A).

(d) A physician who is employed on a regularly scheduled part-time basis of half-time or more is eligible to receive a physicians' comparability allowance, but any such allowance must be prorated according to the proportion of the physicians' work schedule to full-time employment. A physician who is employed on less than a half-time or intermittent basis is excluded from the physicians' comparability allowance program.

(e) A physician who is serving with the Government under a loan repayment program must have the amount of any loan being repaid deducted from any physicians' comparability allowance for which he or she is eligible and may receive only that portion of such allowance which exceeds the amount of the loan being repaid during the period of employment required by the service agreement under the student loan repayment program.