In this issue:

• North Carolina sets an October 15 webinar on NC Medicaid’s Primary Care Payment Pilot Program, a monthly per-patient payment for rural primary care

• Kansas posts its Year 2 RPGP/CAP RFA Webinar deck: consortia now eligible, RPGP awards capped at $5 million, indirect at 5%

• Catalyst deep dive: CMS lists eight states are building designated Catalyst Funds; we’re tracking 24 with a dedicated technology fund

• See more detail in the RHTP Q3 2026 Quarterly Report, including the $0 the first annual reports tag to the Rural Tech Catalyst Fund

North Carolina sets an October 15 webinar on NC Medicaid’s Primary Care Payment Pilot Program, a monthly per-patient payment for rural primary care

From NCDHHS’s October 12 program newsletter:

NC Medicaid intends to test a new option for paying primary care providers through its managed care plans under North Carolina’s Rural Health Transformation Program.

Participating providers would receive a monthly payment for each Medicaid patient assigned in place of most fee-for-service payments.

• Thursday, October 15, 12 to 1 p.m., WebEx, registration required

• Covers “the pilot program’s goals, timeline, and opportunities for engagement as NC Medicaid designs the program and prepares for launch”

• Open to eligible Medicaid primary care providers; eligibility terms are not published yet

The design work already has a contractor. North Carolina’s annual report, which we walked through September 28, lists Mercer at $400,000 for “strategy and design for the value-based payment model.”

The same newsletter opens an NCRHTP Workforce Partner Survey, which will feed a statewide directory the ROOTS Hubs use to find workforce partners.

Kansas posts its Year 2 RPGP/CAP RFA Webinar deck: consortia now eligible, RPGP awards capped at $5 million, indirect at 5%

We covered the two RFAs October 5: $44 million for the Regional Partnerships Grant Program and $11 million for the Transformative Capital Investment Grant Program, both due November 13 at noon Central. KDHE put the October 9 webinar slides and recording on its RHTP page overnight. The deck lists what changed from Year 1:

• Provider networks and consortia are now Eligible Providers

• RPGP awards go from a $2 million to $10 million range to up to $5 million

• Indirect and administrative costs capped at 5%, with an itemized budget required

• Sustainability is its own scored section, 15 points in both programs

• CAP now allows IT investments under the Emerging Technology scope; REH conversion is still allowable

• Year 1 non-awardees may resubmit with revisions

And the payment terms:

Obligation based payment: awardees will submit obligation (e.g., invoice, contract) in order to initiate payment

Groups with several projects file one application. TA office hours run Fridays 1 to 2 p.m. through November 6; questions to rhtphub@khi.org.

Catalyst deep dive: CMS says eight states are building catalyst funds; we’re tracking 24 with a dedicated technology fund

As reported by Sarah Jane Tribble of KFF Health News, (“States Bet Big on Rural Health Startups, With a Silicon Valley Twist”) CMS counts eight states creating rural health tech catalyst funds: Louisiana, Delaware, Georgia, Massachusetts, Nebraska, South Carolina, Virginia and West Virginia.

We read every state’s application, project narrative or NOFO and sorted all 50 by what the plan actually says.

Read more

In this issue:

• Oregon posts version 3 of its RHTP Frequently Asked Questions for Catalyst, Immediate Impact and local public health awardees, dated October 8

• Massachusetts posts a corrected Attachment A – Rural Partner Application for its Rural Partners RFA; questions close October 14

• Mississippi amends its BRIDGE Innovative Pilot Program NOFO: $16 million available, colleges and out-of-state applicants in, one application per NPI or TIN

• Georgia opens the GREAT Health Rural Simulation Mannequin Grant Program, $90,000 per award, due November 13

• Tennessee has its County Health Council Collaborative Action for Rural Engagement (CARE) Grants, RFA #34320-19727, open: $2 million, up to $500,000 per award, due November 20

• Alaska issues its last five Year 1 Notices of Intent to Award, $4.8 million, and closes Year 1 at 254 projects and $248,976,547.51

• South Dakota puts 292 payments and $12.2 million behind its Where Investment Meets Impact map, $8.8 million of it in PACT quality payments to providers

• Texas posts 284 Rural Texas Strong applications at Intent to Award, $451 million, with 68 contracts executed

Consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Oregon posts version 3 of its RHTP Frequently Asked Questions for Catalyst, Immediate Impact and local public health awardees

This is the document behind the “Information for funded partners” block OHA added to its RHTP page. The answer that matters if you sell to Oregon awardees:

Only contractors, subrecipients, and consultants appropriately listed under Section F of the budget narrative are subject to 2 CFR Part 200.320.

And awardees going to market before their agreement is signed must put this in every job posting and RFP:

This position/contract is designed to support the Oregon Rural Health Transformation Program, for which final budget details are currently being negotiated with the Oregon Health Authority. Hiring will be contingent on funding being disbursed.

The rest of the rules:

• No spending on a Section F consultant, subrecipient or contractor until that entity’s separate budget is approved

• Equipment at $10,000 or more per unit waits on CMS prior approval

• Salary cap $228,000 per budget year; indirect up to a 15% de minimis rate

• No RHTP money for Medicaid-billable services

• The standard payment schedule is 50% at execution, then two 25% disbursements; Budget Period 1 money must be spent by September 30, 2027

• Oregon “expects to learn whether it will receive continued funding and the amount by November 1, 2026,” and the first Budget Period 2 payment may not land until mid to late December

Separate FAQs for FQHCs, rural health clinics and rural hospitals receiving Transformation Funds “are forthcoming.”

Massachusetts posts a corrected Attachment A – Rural Partner Application for its Rural Partners RFA; questions close October 14

COMMBUYS Amendment 1, October 8: “Added a new version of Attachment A and removed the pervious version.” EOHHS’s October newsletter, sent October 9:

Note: If you downloaded the application form (Appendix A) from COMMBUYS before October 9, please redownload the corrected application form.

I compared the two editions. Same 22 pages, same 202 form fields with the same properties and positions; the text differs only by the “(Corrected)” label and a line reading “This is a corrected version of the application form.” Whatever was fixed doesn’t show in the text or the field layout, so redownload rather than patch an old copy.

We covered the RFA October 7. The dates:

• Questions to EOHHS-Procurement@mass.gov by Wednesday, October 14 at 5:00 p.m. ET

• Applications through COMMBUYS by Monday, October 26 at 5:00 p.m. ET

The same newsletter introduces Madeline Keefe as RHTP Finance Director and lists an open RHTP Principal Biostatistician position at DPH.

Read more

In this issue:

• Oregon’s Office of Rural Health reports workforce and behavioral health as the leading themes from its first round of RHTP convenings, with Year 2 and 3 applications to be regionally driven

• North Carolina’s Region 4 ROOTS hub names seven Early Implementation Partners, and Trillium sets a Region 2 Rural Ready Roundtable for October 19

• CMS leads its October RoundUp with the ACCESS Model, pitched as RHTP’s complement

• RHTP Q3 2026 Quarterly Report

• Texas puts dates on its three Year 2 RFAs, with applications due January 5, 12 and 19

• Rhode Island sets November 2 for its APM Incentive application and marks RHT Recovery Community Centers FY27 awarded

• Montana awards $8.7 million in DPHHS EMS Equipment Grants, more than double the $4 million it posted

Oregon‘s Office of Rural Health reports workforce development and behavioral healthcare access emerge as leading themes during the first round of RHTP convening across Oregon

The Oregon Rural Health Collaborative ran its first round in August and September across eight regions, including La Grande, The Dalles and Burns. ORH calls workforce the “dominant statewide issue”: grow-your-own pathways, plus housing, wages and childcare as barriers. Behavioral health and substance use came second, which some participants called a workforce problem too. Coordination, and knowing what resources already exist, came up everywhere. So did shared staffing.

Participants also said Oregon’s application process is hard for small rural organizations. One line from the room: “I am in the keep people alive space.”

Here’s the schedule:

• Virtual regional convenings in November, January, February and March, dates TBD

• Four in-person convenings per region, April through July 2027

• Regionally driven RHTP applications targeted for Years 2 and 3

ORH will send each region and OHA a synthesis of the findings. The named ORH contact is Sarah Andersen, Director of Field Services.

North Carolina‘s Region 4 ROOTS hub names its Early Implementation Partners, and Trillium sets a Region 2 Rural Ready Roundtable for October 19

UNC Health runs Region 4 (Orange, Caswell, Person, Granville, Vance, Warren, Franklin, Nash, Wilson, Johnston, Wake, Durham, Alamance, Chatham). It posted a one-sheet with no date naming seven partners:

• NC Integrated Care for Kids: Chronic Disease

• Piedmont Health Services: Chronic Disease

• Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center: Chronic Disease

• Collaborative for Maternal and Infant Health: Perinatal Health

• Equity Foods (Good Bowls): Food Is Medicine, a medically tailored meal delivery network

• Ingram Institute for Healthcare Access: Workforce, covering pre-apprenticeships, paid apprenticeships with community colleges and leadership development

• ShepsGME Technical Assistance Center: Workforce, covering a statewide rural GME consortium, residency and fellowship expansion and rural training hubs

The sheet says more partners will be named through competitive grants. The page adds that UNC Health is “currently developing the application process for NC ROOTS in Region Four.”

Trillium, which runs Regions 2 and 5, started a quarterly public meeting called the Rural Ready Roundtable. The Region 2 session is Monday, October 19, 1:30 to 2:30 p.m., virtual, and you have to register. Region 5 has a page but no date yet.

CMS leads its October RoundUp with the ACCESS Model, pitched as RHTP’s complement

Alina Czekai, Director of the CMS Office of Rural Health Transformation, opened yesterday afternoon’s RoundUp email with the Innovation Center’s Advancing Chronic Care with Effective, Scalable Solutions Model, not with RHTP:

ACCESS uses outcomes-based payments to support technology-enabled chronic care, while RHTP gives states the flexibility to invest in areas such as infrastructure, workforce, data exchange, and provider readiness.

ACCESS covers cardiometabolic, musculoskeletal and behavioral health conditions. More tracks are planned for heart failure, COPD, substance use disorders and tobacco cessation. Czekai closes: “We look forward to helping states explore how these two complementary and impactful programs can support their rural communities.” She names no states and gives no dates.

The RoundUp’s spotlight is Maryland’s NourishMD, the $1.6 million DHCD food-desert grocer line we listed in Maryland’s Budget Period 1 table in September. Its news list repeats ten state releases already reported here.

Read more

In this issue:

• Virginia Works posts its Earn to Learn Initiative (RFA #128140) Q&A: no extension, no indirect, and 100% recoupment on the five-year rural commitment

• Kansas tells its implementation advisory group that 24 agreements worth about $32 million were unsigned as of October 1, and names five Year 2 RFAs

• North Carolina announces more than $17 million for mental health services through its Rural Health Transformation Program, naming one vendor and no grantees

• Rhode Island’s Office of the Health Insurance Commissioner opens the RI RHTP APM Incentive Payment Application

• Mississippi opens the Statewide Health Information Exchange/Health Data Utility (HIE/HDU) RFP, due November 3

Virginia Works posts its Earn to Learn Initiative (RFA #128140) Q&A: no extension, no indirect, and 100% recoupment on the five-year rural commitment

We covered the $4.68 million RFA in the September 24 issue. The Q&A runs about 50 answers. The ones that change a bid:

• No extension: due October 16, 5 PM ET, at eVA 128140. One application per applicant; multiple occupations go in it

• Indirect costs are “not eligible for Earn to Learn funding under any category”; a 10% administrative cap applies, and mentor wages and stipends are out

• $500,000 minimum award, so smaller providers are told to partner through intermediaries; $13,000 per apprentice per year, all costs in

• Reimbursement only: up to 80% of apprentice wages on a sliding scale, other approved costs up to 100%

• Out-of-state technology companies can participate as subcontractors named in the Budget Narrative, not as applicants

• Nurse practitioners, nurse educators, PTs and OTs are not apprenticeable; PTAs and OTAs are

On the five-year service commitment, the commitment follows the apprentice, not the employer, and a participant who leaves rural Virginia without extenuating circumstances means CMS “may seek to recoup 100% of the funds awarded to the apprentice.” Virginia says a participant’s failure alone is not a subrecipient compliance failure. That’s the same rule Maine’s Year 2 narrative asks CMS to soften, which we covered yesterday.

Read more

The Q3 report tracks the first year of Rural Health Transformation funding through September. We’ve traced $4.35 billion in awards and notices of intent to award to specific grantees—43.5% of the $10 billion CMS obligated for Year 1—and broken it down by state, month, topic and award size. It also covers federal outlays to states ($212 million so far), what the first state annual reports show, where each state stands on the eight policy commitments used in CMS scoring, and which states have already posted Year 2 solicitations.

Also: don’t sleep on the free Rural Health Transformation Program State-by-State Reference Guide, a 50-State index with a profile for every state’s Rural Health Transformation Program. Each one gives the exact CMS award, who runs the program as well as advisory committes, key focus, how the state defines rural, and a dated log of every posting linked to the source document. It’s checked nightly, reviewed weekly, and built on the most complete RHTP awards database there is.

In this issue:

• North Carolina’s Access East hosts an RHTP town hall for Medicaid Region 6, October 13

• Oregon reports 30-day results from Just in Case Oregon, an RHTP Immediate Impact Award: 4,244 naloxone doses mailed

• Maine posts its Maine RHTP Y2 Project Narrative, moving $17.9 million out of Innovation & Technology and adding a Tribal Healing activity under its 1115 waiver

• New Hampshire’s Foundation for Healthy Communities opens the Critical Access Hospital (CAH) and Acute Care Hospital RFA, approximately $17.5 million, priority deadline November 12

• Virginia opens the CareIQ Tech Innovation Fund RFA (C-27-002), $9.9 million in non-dilutive grants for rural health technology, due October 29

• Virginia opens Build Career Pipelines through the Department of Education, an estimated $120,868 per award for 75 rural school divisions and 3 regional technical centers, due October 23

• Maine’s technology partner opens Perinatal Specialty Telehealth, Teledentistry and Virtual Quick Care solicitations on its Digital Health Projects page, and moves Youth Tele-Behavioral Health up to October 16

• Mississippi opens the BRIDGE Innovative Pilot Program NOFO, up to $2 million per entity, due November 16

• Massachusetts opens the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) Rural Partners RFA, one application for 27 activities across six initiatives, due October 26

North Carolina‘s Access East hosts an RHTP town hall for Medicaid Region 6, 3 to 4 p.m. Tuesday, October 13

Access East is the ROOTS hub lead for Region 6. New on its hub page overnight:

We will be hosting a virtual town hall from 3-4 p.m. Tuesday, Oct. 13, to talk about our work with the RHTP in Medicaid Region 6. Please join us for this informative session regarding RHTP and our planned approach to addressing health and social care needs in rural communities in eastern North Carolina.

When we walked the ROOTS hubs in the August 20 issue, Access East was still seating a steering committee. This is the first time it has said publicly that it has a planned approach to share. No registration link is posted yet.

Oregon reports 30-day results from Just in Case Oregon, an RHTP Immediate Impact Award: 4,244 naloxone doses mailed

OHA sent this to its RHTP list on October 5. The program launched September 1. Here’s the copy-paste:

1,603 naloxone orders were received from 34 Oregon counties. 1,061 packages containing 4,244 naloxone doses were mailed to community members. 1,260 doses of naloxone were distributed to rural and frontier communities – reaching 94 rural zip codes across 31 counties, including 7 frontier counties.

That puts about 30% of mailed doses in rural and frontier zip codes, by OHA’s own count.

We covered the award in the April 11 issue, when OHA named the Alano Club of Portland and Comagine Health, working with OHA’s Addiction Treatment Recovery & Prevention Services, as the naloxone project. The bulletin adds a name the April list didn’t carry:

Funded through an RHTP Immediate Impact Award, Just in Case Oregon is a collaborative effort of Tabor North, Alano Club of Portland, Comagine Health, OHA’s Behavioral Health Division, and others.

Immediate Impact awards went out in April with no application. This is the first output count OHA has published on one of them. Separately, the Oregon Office of Rural Health says its next RHTP learning collaboratives “will focus on changes to eligibility and administrative requirements under H.R. 1.” No dates yet.

Maine posts its Maine RHTP Y2 Project Narrative, moving $17.9 million out of Innovation & Technology and adding a Tribal Healing activity under its 1115 waiver

DHHS linked it in its first RHTP subscriber update on October 6. It’s the August 28 submitted version; we noted the submission in the September 23 issue. The initiative tables, Year 1 to Year 2:

• Population Health: $34,295,115 to $38,265,510

• Workforce: $31,402,653 to $38,049,359

• Innovation & Technology: $53,369,915 to $35,430,143

• Access: $1,150,938 to $2,724,011

• Sustainable Rural Health Ecosystems: $66,380,325 to $70,680,037

That’s $186.6 million in Year 1 and $185.1 million in Year 2 across the five. The state calls it “no large-scale changes.” The one new line:

The sole new proposed Activity being requested in Year 2, under the Access Initiative, will fund work under Maine’s 1115 waiver to support the delivery of traditional health services for Tribal citizens

EMR modernization also expands to county jails ready to deliver Medicaid pre-release services. On workforce, Maine says it will send CMS alternatives to the five-year rural service commitment for short-term training, so as not to subject people “to a commitment that may not be commensurate with the opportunity.” Every state paying for CNA and EMT cohorts lives under that rule; as far as I can tell Maine is the first to put a pushback in writing.

The narrative names its contractors: Maine Mobile Health Program for mobile units, UNE’s Shaw Institute for Nourish ME and CHWs, MaineHealth as fiscal entity for CHET, Sweetser and Healthy Acadia for ED peer supports, Duke for the Rural AI Hub. The first evaluation-vendor procurement was cancelled; a reposted one is meant to land a vendor “for the start of Year 2.”

Read more

The Q3 report tracks the first year of Rural Health Transformation funding through September. We’ve traced $4.35 billion in awards and notices of intent to award to specific grantees—43.5% of the $10 billion CMS obligated for Year 1—and broken it down by state, month, topic and award size. It also covers federal outlays to states ($212 million so far), what the first state annual reports show, where each state stands on the eight policy commitments used in CMS scoring, and which states have already posted Year 2 solicitations.

Also: don’t sleep on the free Rural Health Transformation Program State-by-State Reference Guide, a 50-State index with a profile for every state’s Rural Health Transformation Program. Each one gives the exact CMS award, who runs the program as well as advisory committes, key focus, how the state defines rural, and a dated log of every posting linked to the source document. It’s checked nightly, reviewed weekly, and built on the most complete RHTP awards database there is.

In this issue:

• Maine posts the Zoom link for tomorrow’s Rural Health Transformation Program Advisory Committee meeting, now 30 minutes

• Indiana reports awards and vendor picks across six statewide initiatives in its October Update

• RHTP Q3 2026 Quarterly Report

• Missouri‘s Hub 2 opens $531,762.78 for Andrew and Buchanan counties, due October 14, on the Local Community Hub – Local Program Funding Application

• South Dakota awards approximately $7.2 million to 25 projects under its Enhancing Sustainable Emergency Medical Services (EMS) Initiative

Maine posts the Zoom link for tomorrow’s Rural Health Transformation Program Advisory Committee meeting, now 30 minutes

Two lines changed on the DHHS rural health page overnight. Before:

Wednesday, October 7 from 12-1pm Webinar link to be provided

After:

Wednesday, October 7 from 12-12:30pm https://mainestate.zoom.us/j/82643291830

The public can attend in listen-mode; the page says public comment will not be taken.

We walked the September 2 Advisory Committee deck in the September 23 issue, including CMS’s line that “States should hear from CMS mid-October in advance of formal NOA 10/31.” Tomorrow’s half hour lands inside that window.

Indiana reports awards and vendor picks across six statewide initiatives in its October Update

The October newsletter replaced August on the Grow Rural Health page overnight. We covered the GROW regional awards, nearly 200 subrecipients and $112.4 million, on September 4. The news here is the other 11 statewide initiatives. Here’s the copy-paste:

• Initiative 3: Enhanced Interoperability — Two vendor contracts executed, beginning work. Provider Readiness Assessment completed and under review

• Initiative 4: Pediatric & OB Readiness — Executed grant agreement with Indiana University School of Medicine

• Initiative 5: Cardiometabolic Standards — 10 Cardiovascular-Kidney-Metabolic (CKM) Centers of Excellence have been identified across all eight regions. Food is Medicine vendor has been selected

• Initiative 6: Meds-to-Beds — 20 hospitals awarded funding for Budget Period One

• Initiatives 7 & 8: Telehealth & Teleconsult — Landscape Assessment in progress. Telemedicine Pilot Grants contract negotiation in progress

• Initiative 9: Growing Paraprofessional Workforce — Awarded partner to implement Rural Healthcare Academies. Onboarding 3 organizations for Community Health Worker Sustainability and Integration Activities

• Initiative 11: Growing Behavioral Health Workforce — Rural Provider Recruitment, Retention and Capacity Project vendors selected

One counterparty is named, Indiana University School of Medicine. The two HIE vendors, the Food is Medicine vendor, the Academies partner, the recruitment vendors and the 20 hospitals are not.

The newsletter also says the strategy “directs 92% of the funding to about 230 Indiana organizations,” against a $206,927,896.80 award. Telehealth is the one initiative still visibly in motion: pilot grants in negotiation, landscape assessment not done.

Read more

The Q3 report tracks the first year of Rural Health Transformation funding through September. We’ve traced $4.35 billion in awards and notices of intent to award to specific grantees—43.5% of the $10 billion CMS obligated for Year 1—and broken it down by state, month, topic and award size. It also covers federal outlays to states ($212 million so far), what the first state annual reports show, where each state stands on the eight policy commitments used in CMS scoring, and which states have already posted Year 2 solicitations.

Also: don’t sleep on the free Rural Health Transformation Program State-by-State Reference Guide, a 50-State index with a profile for every state's Rural Health Transformation Program. Each one gives the exact CMS award, who runs the program as well as advisory committes, key focus, how the state defines rural, and a dated log of every posting linked to the source document. It's checked nightly, reviewed weekly, and built on the most complete RHTP awards database there is.

In this issue:

• Georgia moves its GME Development GREAT Health Funding Opportunity Announcement deadline to October 30

• Louisiana closes its Year 1 application cycle, denial notifications by October 16

• RHTP Q3 2026 Quarterly Report

• Kansas opens Year 2 Regional Partnership Grant Program and Transformative Capital Investment Grant Program RFAs, $55M due Nov. 13

• Oklahoma opens OHCA’s HIE & EHR Assistance Year 1 Application, due December 31

• Oregon offers $7.3M in direct RHTP funding to 34 rural Federally Qualified Health Centers

• Rhode Island awards its Administrator for Health Information Technology Rural Infrastructure Fund to 22nd Century Technologies, $14,926,864.80

• Hawaii names Healthcare Association of Hawaii and Physicians of Southwest Washington for its two RVBI statewide contracts

• Virginia Health Care Foundation names 25 Provider Interoperability awards, $14.39 million

Georgia moves its GME Development GREAT Health Funding Opportunity Announcement deadline to October 30

The “supplemental” Georgia posted October 2 is the same announcement with one line changed:

Closing: October 30, 2026

The September 15 edition said October 15. That is the only difference between the two PDFs. We covered the program when it opened on September 17: up to $3,000,000 per award, at least two awards, money spent by September 1, 2027.

Georgia also posted a three-question FAQ. Here are the answers:

New GME programs are not required to be launched by the end of the period of performance. However, all approved activities outlined in the grant application must be completed before the end of the period of performance to be eligible for reimbursement.

Yes, an organization in the early stages of developing a GME program and seeking ACGME accreditation is eligible to apply for the GREAT Health Rural GME Development Grant, provided they meet all other eligibility requirements.

Yes, other specialties may apply and will be considered based on workforce need and application merit.

So a pre-accreditation program in a non-listed specialty can apply, and has two more weeks to do it. The GREAT Health Advisory Committee meets tomorrow, October 6.

Louisiana closes its Year 1 application cycle, denial notifications by October 16

LDH rewrote its status table on October 2. Every strategy that read “Application Submission Deadline for Year 1 Funds — Closed — End of September” now reads Completed, and one line was added:

Notification of denial for all remaining strategies by October 16, 2026.

If you applied to a Louisiana Year 1 strategy and haven’t heard, October 16 is the date. No dollar figures or recipients on the page.

Read more

In this issue:

• Washington names its 13-member Department of Health RHT Program Advisory Committee

• Louisiana sets October 30 for Year 1 contracts and January to March 2027 for Year 2 NOFOs

• North Dakota hands RHTP grant management to three anchor partners, starting with the UND Center for Rural Health

• Oregon is preparing to award about $2 million to roughly 12 community mental health programs

• West Virginia‘s AI documentation awards come in at $363,000 a hospital, per Vandalia Health’s own award release

• Alabama awards 34 ARHTP Round 2 grants, $54,793,527, closing out Year 1

• Oklahoma opens its Electronic Health Record (EHR) Expansion application

• Oklahoma posts its Year 1 Chronic Disease Management Program funding recipients, 15 awards for $15,608,845.22

Washington names its 13-member Department of Health RHT Program Advisory Committee

HCA added a block to its RHT page yesterday pointing to new Department of Health pages: Advisory Committee, Work with Tribes, and DOH’s activities.

No meeting dates are in the letter. We mapped Washington’s $181.26 million by channel in the September 23 issue; this is the list of people advising on DOH’s share of it.

Louisiana sets October 30 for Year 1 contracts and January to March 2027 for Year 2 NOFOs in its October 1 RHTP Updates webinar slides

Here’s the Budget Year 1 timeline from the deck:

Notification of initial award selection for all strategies: Current – October 2nd Notification of denial for all strategies: Current – October 16th CEA / contract completion: Current – October 30th Quarterly Report to CMS: November 29, 2026

And what’s next:

Anticipated timeline for Year 2 NOFO publication (January – March 2027)

The September 9 deck had denied Credit Bank applicants reapplying in a Year 2 round targeting November. LDH also promises webinars after each NOFO and one regional visit a month starting in January.

The deck also carries Louisiana’s Year 1 allocation by line, as of 9/4. The two biggest: $41.6 million for Rural Health Facilities Capital Improvement and $32.9 million for a Net-New State EHR Instance. Then $20.0 million each for Rural HERO Grants, the Rural Tech Catalyst Fund and Innovative Care Models (APM), and $10.0 million each for the Rural Clinician Credit Bank and Risk-Sharing Value-Based Arrangements.

The next Advisory Council meeting is November 5, 9 a.m. to noon, House Committee Room 3, open and streaming. Next monthly webinar: December 10, 12:30 p.m.

North Dakota hands RHTP grant management to three anchor partners, starting with the UND Center for Rural Health

HHS CFO Donna Aukland told a panel of House and Senate budget writers on September 30 that North Dakota had been managing every RHTP grant itself, an estimated 500 to 700, and is now handing that work to three in-state “anchor partners.” As reported by Jack Dura of the North Dakota Monitor:

“Anchor partners” are in-state organizations that directly handle grant applications and funding opportunities and individually manage the grants.

The UND Center for Rural Health is one. The other two “are not finalized.” Anchor partners can take up to 10% of grants for administration. HHS says it may open an application process for anchor partners in future years.

The timing is the story. HHS reported about $37.3 million obligated, 18.7% of North Dakota’s $198,936,969.55 Year 1 award, with more than $161 million still to award by October 30. When we ran the FSRS record in August, it showed 42 subawards worth $8,069,454.52 and no published awardee list. HHS has not posted the anchor partner decision or the testimony on its own site.

If you are waiting on a North Dakota award, your next conversation may be with UND, not Bismarck.

Oregon is preparing to award about $2 million to roughly 12 community mental health programs under New RHTP Funding Will Strengthen Oregon’s Rural Behavioral Health Workforce

OHA’s September 30 bulletin:

Through Oregon’s Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP), Oregon Health Authority (OHA) is preparing to award approximately $2 million to support clinical supervision and psychiatric mental health nurse practitioner (PMHNP) preceptorships at approximately 12 community mental health programs (CMHPs) serving rural communities.

This funding builds on Oregon’s ongoing Behavioral Health Workforce Initiative (BHWI) and supports the Behavioral Health Talent Council recommendations and priorities from the Governor’s Office.

No solicitation, recipient list or per-program amount accompanies it. This is money moving through an existing state workforce channel to an existing provider class, the same pattern we keep seeing wherever a state already has a program that fits.

Add it to the $97 million Oregon awarded on July 7 and roughly $99 million of its $197.3 million Year 1 award has a program name on it.

Read more

Our State-by-State Reference Guide indexes tons of data, including what each state has committed to measure and an activity log linking to every item for every state I’ve published from the jump.

We’re still compiling data for our Q3 report, now due out Monday, October 5, 2026— subscribe for access.

In this issue:

• Rhode Island’s hospital association seeks a Finance Manager for the Rural Health Transformation Program

• Texas moves three Notice of Award dates to September 30 in its Rural Texas Strong Timelines

• California posts CalRHT Frequently Asked Questions: Grant Notifications, with remaining decisions due by late October

• West Virginia names nine more RHTP recipients, led by More Than $3.2 Million in Rural Health Transformation Investments for AI documentation at five rural hospitals

• Alaska targets $10 million of its Year 2 Fall Funding Cycle to Pay for Value Readiness, due October 28

• North Carolina opens the Rural Health Innovation Fund, five funding tiers up to $250,000, applications close November 16

Rhode Island‘s hospital association seeks a Finance Manager for the Rural Health Transformation Program

File this under “signals”. The Rhode Island Health Care Association posted RIHCA-RHTP-RFP-001, issued September 30:

RIHCA is seeking proposals from qualified vendors to provide Finance Manager services to support the financial, fiscal and administrative requirements of the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP)

The terms are $85 an hour with a not-to-exceed of $67,500, funded through June 30, 2027, with a one-year renewal option. Scope covers budget tracking, financial reporting and compliance oversight for RHTP plus “other programmatic efforts within RIHCA.” Scoring is experience 50%, organizational capacity 30%, qualifications 20%.

Texas names all 68 Make Rural Texans Healthy Again award recipients

On Monday we covered some of the awardees in the contect of the Texas Annual Report.

HHSC’s open records office, answering our request September 30:

Please note that only Initiative 1 awards have been announced ... but are not funded or contracted and thus, still considered in the procurement period.

The awards for the other 3 RTS Initiatives (1.2, 4 & 6) are still pending/have not been decided. ... RHTP webpage will have revised dates posted in the next few weeks.

The annual report counted 33 of these as obligated as of July 31. The timeline table HHSC rebuilt overnight still shows Initiative 1 Part 2 and both Initiative 4 rounds at a September 30 Notice of Award; by HHSC’s own account those dates are about to move. Part 1 evaluation records should come “in the next 1-2 months as the Initiatives fully close (est. November).”

Upshot: complicated things are complicated. But we’re working in the trenches to uncover and deliver accurate data as fast as possible

Read more

In this issue:

• Pennsylvania posts its first RHTP recipient list

• Georgia withdraws its $10 million Telehealth Enhancements funding opportunity after applications closed

• Maine opens Nursing Home Telehealth: Nursing Facilities, a grant for up to 15 skilled nursing facilities, due October 22

• New York publishes its Rural Community Health Integration Awardees List: $76,190,022 to 55 lead applicants, every eligible county but Rensselaer

Pennsylvania posts its first RHTP recipient list

Pennsylvania DHS has published a list of 66 named RHTP projects with an exact dollar amount for each, headed “Total Awarded to Date: $43,000,000.” The rows add up to $42.2M. Until now, Pennsylvania’s $86.8M in certification-based program payments had gone out without any public list of recipients. The money is going into buildings and equipment: 51 of the 66 projects are Technology & Infrastructure, such as CT scanners, operating room fit-outs, roofs, HVAC systems and elevators, mostly at about $1M per site. Geisinger has five sites on the list, and four nursing homes each received the full $1M. The page doesn’t say which funding round each project came from. DHS linked the page from a new Resource Guide it released this morning.

Side note. PA has near-duplicate items on the RFPs board: three EHR & HIO items all due 2026-08-14, two FQHC items due 2026-08-07, and two Rapid Response Round 1 items due 2026-06-01. They should be merged before any award rows get linked to them.

Maine opens Nursing Home Telehealth: Nursing Facilities, a grant for up to 15 skilled nursing facilities, due October 22 / Georgia withdraws its $10 million Telehealth Enhancements funding opportunity after applications closed.

Georgia withdraws its $10 million Year 1 Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) Strategy for Telehealth Enhancements – Initiative 3: Connecting to Care to Improve Healthcare Access funding opportunity after applications closed

DCH put this at the top of its GREAT Health funding page overnight:

The Georgia Department of Community Health (DCH) formally announces the withdrawal of the Telehealth Funding Opportunity originally scheduled under the Year 1 Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) funding cycle.

Due to consideration of available funds and administrative adjustments, Year 1 allocations for this specific initiative will not be awarded at this time. However, DCH fully intends to revisit and restructure this telehealth funding opportunity in subsequent RHTP funding years, subject to the continued availability and receipt of federal funds.

This one already ran. Telehealth Enhancements was Round 4, Tier 2, open June 15 to July 15, 2026: $10,000,000 total, number of awards “dependent upon proposals submitted,” open to rural hospitals, providers and community organizations in the 126 rural and partial-rural counties, with priority for hospitals holding a signed AHEAD Letter of Intent. Anyone who applied in July is out for Year 1. The announcement reserved it: “DCH reserves the right to fund all, part, or none of the submitted applications.”

Its Round 4 sibling went the other way — Workforce Retention Technology put $26 million into surgical robots at 13 hospitals, which we covered in August. Initiative 3’s other Year 1 opportunity, Point-of-Care Telepods, awarded $4.28 million in July.

The $10 million is 4.6% of Georgia’s $218,862,169.63 Year 1 award. DCH doesn’t say where it goes.

Read more

Also: Our State-by-State Reference Guide indexes tons of data, including what each state has committed to measure and an activity log linking to every item for every state I’ve published from the jump.

All this is in preparation for Thursday’s Q3 report— subscribe for access.

In this issue:

• Michigan tells House appropriators it has $124 million allocated and CMS-approved across 236 subrecipients

• Idaho‘s legislative committee moves $1.2 million out of the School-Based Family Support Hubs Solicitation and into Healthcare Infrastructure Support

• Missouri‘s RHTP Strategic Minor Renovations Program gets its first per-hospital number: about $580,000 to Texas County Memorial Hospital

• Georgia‘s GREAT Health funds the Rural Healthcare Facility Resilience Program, $3.735 million to UGA’s Institute for Disaster Management

• West Virginia names its HealthTech Appalachia fiscal agent: the West Virginia Jobs Investment Trust, for $18.8 million

• Maine posts Year 1 EMR Modernization results: 55 organizations, $29.4 million requested, 206 projects

• Ohio posts the Rural Health Transformation (RHT)-Rural Hospital Training and Technical Assistance Center (RHTAC) solicitation, due October 20

• Texas posts its Budget Period 1 Annual Report: $53.3 million obligated, 33 rural hospital districts at $750,000 each

• Colorado publishes its full RHTP awardee list, $170.2 million across 92 awards

Michigan tells House appropriators it has $124 million allocated and CMS-approved across 236 subrecipients

Beth Nagel, MDHHS senior deputy director, presented the update to the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Medicaid and Behavioral Health on September 22. Eli Newman of Bridge Michigan covered the hearing. MDHHS’s public subrecipient page, as of August 31, lists about $105 million, and the department says it’s being updated.

The deck splits Michigan's $173,128,201.02 into $124.6 million in Direct Grants, made through letters of intent and interagency agreements to organization types named in the state's proposal, and $48.4 million in Proposal-Based Grants run through the open GFO process. It counts 205 GFO applications

By rural classification, the 58 fully rural counties get $152.5 million, the 17 partially rural counties $10.5 million, and the 8 non-designated counties $0.8 million. By region, the Northern Lower Peninsula gets $71.5 million and the Upper Peninsula $38.5 million.

Budget Period 2 starts October 31. MDHHS says it expects its Year 2 award soon and plans a public dashboard in 2027.

Idaho‘s legislative committee moves $1.2 million out of the School-Based Family Support Hubs Solicitation and into Healthcare Infrastructure Support

Reported by Royce McCandless of The Moscow-Pullman Daily News

The Rural Health Transformation Committee voted September 25 to pull Year 1 funding from RHTPSBFSH. That’s $1.2 million, or 15 awards at $80,000, for mental and behavioral health spaces inside rural schools. It goes to the $97 million Healthcare Infrastructure Support subgrant. Only Sen. Mark Harris voted no. . Director Juliet Charron told the committee 10 school districts had already applied.

Sen. Camille Blaylock, who raised it, tied the move to 2024’s House Bill 684, which died in committee:

I worry that we are overstepping here just because we have this funding opportunity to create these spaces, when elected officials just two years ago said no.

DHW now has to amend its plan with CMS and still obligate by October 30. Blaylock said the hubs could come back in Year 2 once the Legislature passes “some additional safeguards that are not in law today.” The committee meets next on November 19.

Missouri‘s RHTP Strategic Minor Renovations Program gets its first per-hospital number: about $580,000 to Texas County Memorial Hospital

DSS named the 20 hospitals in its ToRCH Care Horizon 1 round on September 22 at approximately $35 million total, with no per-hospital amounts. Texas County Memorial Hospital in Houston has now put its own figure on the record. James Hurtt of Ozark Radio News was in the room for the board meeting and has it first:

Texas County Memorial Hospital has received approval for approximately $580,000 in Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) Horizon One funding, providing support for infrastructure and operational improvements throughout the hospital

Five projects: HVAC replacements in physical therapy, dietary and MRI; a CT humidifier; LED lighting with motion and light-harvesting controls hospital-wide; door access control in surgery and the ED; and central sterile water filtration in surgery. TCMH says it is getting updated quotes now.

That’s about a third of the $1.75 million average across the 20 hospitals. TCMH also reported a separate $50,000 RHTP grant for EMS education, covering staff hours, computers and equipment, from a program the hospital didn’t name.

Georgia‘s GREAT Health funds the Rural Healthcare Facility Resilience Program, $3.735 million to UGA’s Institute for Disaster Management

UGA’s College of Public Health announced the award September 25. It’s one of nearly 30 GREAT Health initiatives, and it sits in Initiative 2, where DCH names IDM as a key stakeholder for shelter-in-place. Here’s the mechanism:

IDM will partner with engineering firms to conduct infrastructure assessments at eligible facilities across Georgia... facilities will receive a detailed, actionable report... which they can then use to apply for grant funding through the GREAT Health Program.

Eligible facilities are rural hospitals, skilled nursing facilities and inpatient hospice. Engineering firms are the first-tier buy. The facilities’ resilience grants come after that. Program inbox: ruralresilience@uga.edu.

Read more

Also: over the weekend I made updates to a feature that started as a subscriber-only one-time thing for our last quarterly report and now is public and updated nightly. Our State-by-State Reference Guide indexes tons of data, including what each state has committed to measure and an activity log linking to every item for every state I’ve published from the jump.

All this is in preparation for Thursday’s Q3 report— subscribe for access.

In this issue:

• Maine publishes one rural test for every RHTP dollar in its Maine RHTP Funding Opportunities: Universal Requirements for Funding Eligibility

• Alaska drops the Letter of Interest for its RHTP Year 2 fall cycle, due October 28, with a limit of five applications per organization

• Alaska issues seven more Notices of Intent to Award, $6.9M, and cuts or pulls seven earlier awards in its award list

• Kansas’s Annual Report shows $126,958,972.42 obligated, 57% of Year 1, and $101.3 million of it at the Care Collaborative Association

• North Carolina files its RHT Program Annual Report: $167,718,439.45 obligated to 14 first-tier entities, $105,290.58 spent

Maine publishes one rural test for every RHTP dollar in its Maine RHTP Funding Opportunities: Universal Requirements for Funding Eligibility

It went up overnight on MCD’s Maine RHTP page, under a new Maine RHTP Funding Opportunities header. It applies to every department and DHHS office running RHTP money. The baseline: physically located in Maine (telehealth-only providers excepted), in good standing with DHHS, serving rural populations. Provider opportunities add a Maine license and active MaineCare enrollment.

Here’s the rural test. You qualify if any one of these is true:

a. Are located in one of Maine’s 12 fully rural counties as defined by HRSA (Aroostook, Franklin, Hancock, Kennebec, Knox, Lincoln, Oxford, Piscataquis, Sagadahoc, Somerset, Waldo, and Washington)

• In Androscoggin, Cumberland, Penobscot or York: a rural census tract under the HRSA file or USDA RUCA codes, or a NOFO “rural provider” type (CAH, FQHC, etc.)

• Anywhere else: serve “a meaningful number of rural patients,” but the state identifies those organizations “a priori,” with documentation

“Good standing” has teeth: no corrective action plans or performance-concern letters in the past two years, no past-due DHHS reports or deliverables in two years, no payment suspension, no conditional license.

The Year 1 eligibility table covers the three provider opportunities we priced on September 21: EMR, APM Transition, and the Rural Hospital Efficiency Fund, limited to the 11 invited hospitals we covered August 4.

The rural definition keeps getting written state by state, and it keeps landing wide. Alaska’s new drafts, below, put it in one line: “all areas outside of Anchorage are considered rural.”

Alaska drops the Letter of Interest for its RHTP Year 2 fall cycle, due October 28, with a limit of five applications per organization

The Alaska RHTP Year 2 fall funding will open by 1:00 pm Alaska time on Wednesday, September 30, 2026, and will remain open for four weeks. The deadline to submit applications for the Year 2 fall cycle is 11:59pm Alaska time on Wednesday, October 28, 2026.

We had the September 30 open date on the 21st. The rules differ from Year 1:

• One application stage, no separate Letter of Interest

• Organization registration once, separate from the project application

• Up to five project applications per organization

• Planning pathway under $250,000 with a shorter application

• Fall focus areas: Pay for Value Readiness, Care Coordination Readiness, EMS data integration and workforce. All six initiatives stay open.

• Year 1 continuations and facilities or renovation requests wait for Spring 2027. Limited equipment replacement money is available this fall.

In Year 1, the LOI stage cut 1,800 letters down to 403 invitations. This time there is no screen before the full application.

The scoring changed too. Advancing now takes a 3.0 weighted overall and 2.5 in every criterion (it was 3.0 in every criterion). A new Cost-Effectiveness and Budget Justification criterion takes 10%, cut from Alignment (20 to 15) and Outcomes (15 to 10).

The draft frameworks are open for comment until 5:00 pm Alaska time Friday, October 9, and the finals post by October 14, two weeks before the deadline. The Alaska Community Foundation runs an application walkthrough October 1, 1:00 to 1:30 pm, and DOH’s applicant support webinar is October 2, 1:00 to 2:00 pm. Expect about 11 weeks from open to awards, versus about 24 in the spring cycle. A second Year 2 cycle is expected in 2027.

Read more

In this issue:

• CMS publishes updated Rural Health Transformation Program Post-Award Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), September 2026

• South Dakota has its Rural Health Data Atlas–Informatics Services and Medicaid PACT RFPs open, due September 28 and October 2

• Iowa gets CMS’s first State Spotlight for its Combat Cancer Health Hub Program, and its Healthy Hometowns dashboard shows $32,850,309.82 obligated to the hubs and $0 spent

• South Dakota awards 12 CCBHC modernization and infrastructure grants, more than $13 million, with no amounts by clinic

• Delaware awards $22.69 million to its three FQHCs

• Arkansas awards $54,685,068.84 in Year 1 RISE AR and HEART funding to 38 organizations

CMS publishes updated Rural Health Transformation Program Post-Award Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs), September 2026

Dated September 23, it replaces the April edition and opens with a change log: 49 new questions, 2 updated. Quietly linked from the Medicaid CMS resources page and Maryland’s RHTP Procurement page, stamped 09-24-2026. The answers that change what a subrecipient or vendor can expect:

• No CMS approval of subaward budgets before signing; states upload final subaward and contract information as a grant note after selection.

• States must disburse drawn-down funds, “including both up-front advance payments and reimbursements,” within 3 business days.

• A subrecipient’s administrative rate can exceed 10%, as long as the state’s cumulative admin across the whole award stays at or under 10%.

• Doulas are nonclinical, so no 5-year service commitment. Community paramedics are clinical, so they carry one.

• The 5-year commitment can’t be served by telehealth from a non-rural site, can’t be served in a neighboring state, and CMS may recoup 100% if a provider walks without extenuating circumstances, prorated if there are.

• CMS tells states to collect each obligated provider’s tax ID and NPI “to match against available claims data.”

• Non-rural FQHCs can be funded if their services “clearly benefit rural residents.”

The one that didn’t change: no extension on the obligation deadline.

South Dakota has its Rural Health Data Atlas–Informatics Services and Medicaid PACT RFPs open, due September 28 and October 2

File this under new to me. Both went up on the state posting board mid-month, and the September RHT Funding Forecast (updated 09/15/2026, posted yesterday) is where they surfaced. Against the August 19 edition, it adds the Informatics RFP and flips PACT from UPCOMING to OPEN:

• 26RFP-27-09RHT-025, Rural Health Data Atlas–Informatics Services, posted September 14, due September 28, 5:00 PM CT. The second Data Atlas procurement; the Data Visualization & Analysis Platform (26-09RHT-021) closed August 31.

• 26RFP-27-09RHT-026, Rural Health–Medicaid Primary Accountable Care Transformation (PACT), posted September 10, due October 2, 11:59 PM CT. The forecast pegs PACT Provider Value-Based Quality Payments at $7M first year. The Q&A cutoff was September 10 at 9:34 AM, 55 minutes after posting.

• Still UPCOMING: Population Health and Case Management Tools, $3M first year.

Both are invitation only on ESM, and the documents sit behind a supplier login. South Dakota’s own annual report lists PACT at zero payers aligned on payment methodology and zero Medicaid recipients enrolled in case management as of July 31.

Iowa gets CMS’s first State Spotlight for its Combat Cancer Health Hub Program, and its Healthy Hometowns dashboard shows $32,850,309.82 obligated to the hubs and $0 spent

CMS opened a State Spotlights page yesterday and led its September RoundUp email with it:

Iowa is taking the fight to cancer through its $11 million RHTP-funded Combat Cancer Health Hub Program. Five recently announced awardees will work to expand access to cancer care in rural areas through partnerships, telehealth, workforce recruitment, equipment purchases, and other investments.

CMS doesn’t name them. Iowa did, on June 18: Ottumwa Regional Health Center, Wayne County Hospital, Shenandoah Medical Center, Greater Regional Medical Center and Mary Greeley Medical Center.

That same release launched the Power BI dashboard we flagged June 19 and never walked. It was last updated September 17. What it says now:

• All $209,040,063.71 of Year 1 obligated, $13,700,056.62 spent, 6.6%

• Combat Cancer: $44,811,984.82 obligated, $867,300.51 spent

• Combat Cancer Health Hubs: $32,850,309.82 obligated, $0.00 spent. CMS’s $11 million doesn’t match any line.

• The hub-and-spoke map carries seven hub networks: Mary Greeley, MercyOne Des Moines, MercyOne North Iowa, Methodist Jennie Edmundson, Ottumwa Regional, Shenandoah and Wayne County. Greater Regional isn’t one of them.

The other pages break out awards by county and scope of work, Best and Brightest equipment and workforce recruitment dollars by county, and Centers of Excellence by specialty.

Read more

In this issue:

• Idaho says its Healthcare Infrastructure Support Solicitation drew more than 250 applications asking for more than $300 million

• Oregon‘s Transformation Funds show up by name for the first time: Wallowa Memorial Hospital and Medical Clinics awarded over $5.4 million

• Virginia publishes the Earn to Learn Initiative RFA through Virginia Works, $4,679,752.46 for rural allied health apprenticeships, due October 16

• Maine opens a Youth Tele-Behavioral Health Provider opportunity, applications due October 18

• Vermont‘s RHT Year 1 Awards and Contracts list adds 26 agreements and $22,365,970.68 in a week, and Rutland Regional’s primary care agreement comes off it

• New Hampshire hands Health Strategies for New Hampshire a $40 million sole-source contract to run GO-NORTH population health grants

Idaho says its Healthcare Infrastructure Support Solicitation drew more than 250 applications asking for more than $300 million

The solicitation had $97,213,653 available. Director Juliet Charron gave the count at the first meeting of the Governor’s RHT Implementation Task Force on September 23. Laura Guido of the Idaho Capital Sun was in the room and has it first. Charron’s words:

That means that we will have to say no to some

That’s more than three to one on a solicitation with no cap on individual awards. Stage 2 spending waits on a detailed budget due within 45 days of award. All of Idaho’s roughly 20 Year 1 opportunities are closed, and the October 30 obligation deadline is five weeks out.

DHW added a Governor’s RHT Implementation Task Force folder to its public document library the same day. As of this morning it is empty. Weiser Memorial Hospital CEO Beau McNeff, a task force member, asked why Alaska got more than $272 million and Idaho under $200 million. Charron sent the question to CMS.

Oregon‘s Transformation Funds show up by name for the first time: Wallowa Memorial Hospital and Medical Clinics awarded over $5.4 million

OHA’s July 7 release set aside $50 million in direct, non-competitive Transformation Funds: $35 million for rural hospitals, $10 million for certified rural health clinics, and $5 million for local public health authorities. OHA has not posted a recipient list. Wallowa County Health Care District has now posted its own numbers via press release:

Direct Transformation Awards will deliver immediate upgrades across local facilities, including $964,000 allocated to Wallowa Memorial Hospital to complete the installation of a new, state-of-the-art onsite MRI unit. Additionally, $100,000 awards are funding specific clinical and community projects at each of the district’s four Rural Health Clinics.

That’s the first per-recipient look at the rural hospital pool and the clinic pool. $100,000 per clinic works out to a flat per-RHC allocation, at least here.

The district also holds two competitive Catalyst Awards, for $4.1 million total:

• $1,965,251 for a Rural Maternal and Newborn Health Sustainability Initiative covering Eastern Oregon

• $2,135,065 for stereotactic breast biopsy, 3D mammography, a CT scanner with cardiac calcium scoring, a Mohs dermatology program, and a blood bank analyzer integrated with Epic

OHA’s Catalyst data file carries the second project at $2,047,167.83. The district’s release says 500+ proposals were submitted across the state.

Other districts will know their own Transformation Funds numbers. If you have yours, reply back.

Read more

• Maine publishes Rural Health Transformation Program Advisory Committee September 2, 2026 deck

• Idaho closes every Year 1 funding opportunity and moves to award

• Washington maps all $181.26 million by channel, and $28.4 million of it went out by RFA

• Missouri awarded MEMSA $12.3 million through a Single Feasible Source, signed eleven days before the response date

• West Virginia names its first Provider Productivity Support Fund award: $500,000 to CHANGE, Inc. for AI tools

• Missouri names the 20 hospitals in its RHTP Strategic Minor Renovations Program, approximately $35 million

Maine publishes Rural Health Transformation Program Advisory Committee September 2, 2026 deck

Maine submitted its Year 1 Annual Report and its Year 2 Application on August 28, and CMS ran a site visit September 9 and 10. Here’s the line that applies to every state:

States should hear from CMS mid-October in advance of formal NOA 10/31

And the one that explains why every state is rushing to show progress:

Rescoring is significantly weighted towards work accomplished to date

Maine also named its administrative services vendor, Public Consulting Group. The evaluation vendor is still TBD. On the provider side, EMR Enhancements closed August 14 and is in review, Alternative Payment Model Transitions got preliminary information at the end of July, and the Rural Hospital Efficiency Program invited 11 hospitals at the end of July — invitation-only, not competed. Regional Health Ecosystems, the fifth initiative, is in a planning phase with no solicitation attached.

Idaho closes every Year 1 opportunity on its funding opportunities page

The last one closed September 21. Here’s what went up the next day:

(Updated 9/22/26) All the funding opportunities for the first year of the Rural Health Transformation Program have closed. The Year 1 funding opportunities are closed and are in the award and procurement process. Watch this page for updates as awardees and start dates are determined, as well as information about Year 2 funding.

The funding-at-a-glance sheet, the opportunity overviews, the PowerPoint and the FAQ came off the page in the same edit. If you bid in Idaho, the next document is an award list, not another RFA.

Read more

• Mississippi opens a Stakeholder Survey on the state RHTP site, asking about experience, needs, preferences, and concerns

• Idaho closes three RFAs and takes the entire supporting document set off the funding opportunities page with them

• Virginia’s VHCF closes Provider Interoperability and Provider Productivity and dates the awards September 30 and October 14

• Iowa releases Cardiovascular Health Hub Program RFP, $33M in Y1 against $108.6M 4-year total

• Nevada deep dive: review of newly filed BP2 docs and Y1 annual report

Mississippi opens a Stakeholder Survey on the state RHTP site

We need your help to understand your experience, needs, preferences, and concerns. Take the Stakeholder Survey

Idaho closes three RFAs on its funding opportunities page

Three RFAs now read CLOSED 9/18/26: SUD Prevention, Behavioral Health Prevention, and Healthcare Infrastructure Support. The first two were posted 8/21/26 and updated 9/10/26; Healthcare Infrastructure Support was posted 8/18/26, updated 9/11/26, and had already had its deadline extended to September 18 at 11:59 p.m. MDT. Those deadlines landed on schedule.

For historical purposes, here’s links to docs:

• https://publicdocuments.dhw.idaho.gov/WebLink/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=37580 (109 KB)

• https://publicdocuments.dhw.idaho.gov/WebLink/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=37581 (229 KB)

• https://publicdocuments.dhw.idaho.gov/WebLink/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=37582 (227 KB)

• https://publicdocuments.dhw.idaho.gov/WebLink/ElectronicFile.aspx?docid=37583 (106 KB)

Virginia‘s VHCF closes Provider Interoperability and Provider Productivity and dates the awards September 30 and October 14

The Provider Interoperability & Provider Productivity Request for Applications (RFAs) are now closed. Thank you for your interest. VHCF anticipates sharing a Notice of Awards by September 30, 2026, for Provider Interoperability and October 14, 2026, for Provider Productivity.

The page also prices both sides for the first time. Interoperability is “approximately $14 million” — the same figure VHCF gave in its August 6 pre-application webinar — and Productivity is now posted at “between $7 million and $9 million.” Both are sub-initiatives of Virginia’s CareIQ initiative, and VHCF’s own deck puts the pair at $26 million in Year 1. So $21 million to $23 million of that $26 million is accounted for in public, and $3 million to $5 million is not. Productivity is scoped explicitly at:

adoption of digital productivity tools, including AI-enabled decision-support, documentation, and workflow automation, to reduce administrative burden, ease provider burnout, and allow rural clinicians to focus more of their valuable time on patient care

That is an ambient-documentation and AI-scribe buy, named as such by the funder, against Virginia’s $189,544,888 Year 1 award. The Interoperability performance period runs October 1, 2026 through September 30, 2027, so awardees have twelve months to spend. VHCF is a subrecipient of DMAS and administers both. Watch September 30 and October 14 for the recipient lists.

Read more

In this issue:

• Idaho closes three RHTP solicitations in four days

• Alaska opens its Year 2 fall funding cycle September 30, the first of two planned for Year 2

• Washington posts an ICF webinar on early lessons in rural health transformation for September 30

• North Carolina’s ROOTS Region 2 Hub seats its 21-member Advisory Board

• Alaska’s Year 1 Notice of Intent to Award list reaches 244 projects and $239,186,194.73

• Kansas names all 14 Emerging Technology Award winners and what each one is buying

• Maine publishes its Five Strategic Initiatives and puts $88.5 million of a $190,008,051.09 Year 1 award behind three provider opportunities

• New Mexico moves the Rural Health Data Hub Administrator (RHDHA) RFP to September 25 and cuts the contract term to four years

• New Mexico names six Healthy Horizons Regional Hub Organizations and $74,061,254.18 in regional allocations

• Oklahoma puts $16,023,961 of RHTP money into Building Health Data Utility at the Health Care Authority, off the state’s RHTP funding page entirely

Idaho closes three solicitations in four days on its Funding Opportunities — Rural Health page

Idaho DHW relabeled three opportunities closed between September 14 and September 17, and dated the page 9-18-2026:

• Graduate Medical Education (non-competitive subgrant in partnership with the State Board of Education) — CLOSED 9/14/26

• Statewide Chronic Disease Education Network — CLOSED 9/15/26

• Healthcare Career Advancement, in partnership with the State Board of Education — CLOSED 9/17/26

Alaska opens its Year 2 fall funding cycle September 30, the first of two planned for Year 2

From the Department of Health listserv, Friday evening:

The Alaska RHTP Year 2 fall funding cycle will open Wednesday, September 30. The application window will remain open for four weeks.

This is the first of two funding cycles planned for Year 2 of the RHTP grant.

DOH is also running an Applicant Support Webinar on Friday, October 2, and it is the more useful of the two events on the calendar — the team will “discuss common mistakes in the Year 1 cycle and how to avoid them” and give guidelines for a competitive proposal. The September 23 Applicant Convening in Anchorage we covered on Monday the 15th; registration for both is on the RHTP Events page.

Washington posts an ICF webinar: Early lessons in rural health transformation for September 30

HCA added a registration block to its RHT page:

Join state health leaders from Washington, Tennessee, and Florida as they share innovative efforts to strengthen rural health systems. They’ll lead a conversation about what’s working, what’s changed, and what other states can learn from their experience so far.

Wednesday, September 30 1–2 p.m.

North Carolina‘s ROOTS Region 2 Hub seats its 21-member Advisory Board

Trillium Health Resources moved its Region 2 board from “being established” to seated on September 18 and published the roster:

The NC ROOTS Region 2 Advisory Board provides guidance for the Region 2 Hub Action Plan. The Board consists of twenty-one (21) members and represents diverse communities, sectors, and lived experiences across the region.

Trillium is the hub we flagged in Ten RFPs in North Carolina as the only one with live RFAs, and those five are still posted — NCCARE360 Adoption, Food is Medicine Community Training Partner, LOCATe Implementation, I Gave Birth Implementation, and Food is Medicine Program Expansion, all through Region2NCRootsHub@TrilliumNC.org.

UNC Health, which runs Region 4, replaced its Regional Community Needs Assessment stub with a published overview and full report in the same 24 hours. A seated board and a finished needs assessment are the two documents a hub cites when it justifies what it funds next. Read them before Region 2 and Region 4 write their next round.

Read more

• 2026 Q2 Newsletter Activity Index: state-by state, topic-by-topic deeplinks

• Q2 RFP Review / Q3 RFP Watcher: Every procurement from Q2, near-term contracting outlook, and state-by-state analysis

• The 50-State RHTP Field Guide: downloadable PDF with RHT personality, program maturity, federal outlays, open procurements, engagement activity, rural geography, and contacts

RHTP awards are being published in disparate places state by state and sometimes only in response to my FOIA requests. RHTP Verified Intelligence tracks awards, the work, and the people responsible for delivering.

In this issue:

• Idaho’s Implementation Task Force meets September 23

• New Hampshire’s Foundation for Healthy Communities is closing School Based Oral Health Program RFA soon

• South Carolina opens a Public Input Survey to Help Inform Future RHTP Funding Decisions, closing October 2

• Colorado points vendors at a public interest list that already names more than fifty entries

• Nevada’s Annual Report-Year 1 shows 280 applications asking for $330.7 million, and one initiative still unlaunched

• Nevada’s Budget Period 2 Budget Narrative puts $174,803,558 into eight solicitations with published open dates

Idaho‘s Implementation Task Force meets September 23

MEETING: Idaho Rural Health Transformation Program Implementation Task Force

The task force will meet at 2 p.m. MT Sept. 23 in the PTC Building’s 7th floor conference room.

That is the whole notice. No agenda, no materials, no virtual option. Task force materials, when they appear, land in the DHW public document library rather than on the program page. Idaho’s funding opportunities page did not move alongside it.

New Hampshire’s Foundation for Healthy Communities is closing School Based Oral Health Program RFA soon

Thank you for your past interest in the Foundation for Healthy Communities’ Rural Health Transformation School Based Oral Health Program RFA.

This is a friendly reminder that the application portal for this funding opportunity will be closing on Friday September 25, 2026 at 5pm.

We encourage you to go to the GO-NORTH website for more information about the GO-NORTH Rural Health Transformation Program and to subscribe to receive GO-NORTH notices (See box “How Can We Help You Today” on bottom right of main page).

If you have any questions, please don’t hesitate to reach out to us at GO-NORTH-FHC@healthynh.org

South Carolina opens a Public Input Survey to Help Inform Future RHTP Funding Decisions, closing October 2

SCDHHS posted MB# 26-033 on September 17. It runs about five minutes, responses are anonymous, and it closes October 2, 2026.

All responses are anonymous. No individual responses will be shared or attributed.

The bulletin is addressed to healthcare providers, professionals and community members with connections to rural health, and it asks about statewide rural health priorities and about project-specific experience. The survey instrument is here; questions go to grants@scdhhs.gov.

What South Carolina asks about is a fair preview of what South Carolina intends to solicit, and answering it is a great way to communicate with the people writing the next RFA.

The survey sits on the same grants page as the SC RHTP Year 1 Award List, which we walked on Monday in South Carolina posts its SC RHTP Year 1 Award List, 228 projects for $167,299,900.69. Read the award list first, then answer the survey — the gaps in the first are the argument for the second.

Colorado’s public vendor interest list is still growing

HCPF added one line to its RHTP page: vendors interested in working with Colorado providers should fill out this form. The form has been collecting since May 6, 2026; what is new is the pointer on the main page.

HCPF’s own caveat, in capitals on the page:

HCPF IS NOT REVIEWING THIS LIST FOR QUALITY OR RELEVANCY

So it is a directory, not a prequalification.

Also: Colorado’s RHTP Advisory Committee meets Monday, September 28, 10 to 11:30 a.m., and the page still says the RHTP team anticipates making award announcements by the end of September 2026.

Nevada‘s Budget Period 2 NCC Budget Narrative puts $174,803,558 into eight solicitations with published open dates

Budget Period 2 runs 10/31/26 – 10/30/27 and totals $179,931,608, the same as Year 1. Three of the four initiative shares moved: Flex Fund from 20% to 25%, RHOAP from 15% to 21%, and WRRAP down from 40% to 29%. Nevada says plainly why — BP1 application demand came in far above allocation for infrastructure and far below it for workforce.

Contractual is $178,105,578, of which $174,803,558 is already carved into eight named solicitations with dates. Here is the Year 2 calendar, verbatim from the budget narrative:

• Nevada Rural Health System Flex Fund — $44,982,902 (25%). RFA drafted October–December 2026, published January 2027, open through February 12, 2027, subgrants executed no later than May 30, 2027

• Rural Health Outcomes Accelerator Program — $37,785,638 (21%). Drafted December 2026–January 2027, published February 2027, open through March 19, 2027, subgrants executed no later than July 4, 2027

• WRRAP Provider Recruitment & Retention — $34,187,006. Drafted January–February 2027, published March 2027, open through April 19, 2027, subgrants executed no later than August 4, 2027

• Rural Health Innovation & Technology Grants — $26,989,741 (15%). Published January 2027, open through February 12, 2027, executed no later than May 30, 2027

• WRRAP Training & Apprenticeships — $12,595,213. Published March 2027, open through April 19, 2027, executed no later than August 4, 2027

• Fund for Rural Tribal Health Transformation — $8,096,922 (4.5%). Published January 2027, open through February 12, 2027, executed no later than May 30, 2027

• WRRAP Rural Workforce Projects — $5,397,948. Published March 2027, open through April 19, 2027, executed no later than August 4, 2027

• Fund for Rural Veteran and Correctional Health Transformation — $4,768,188 (2.65%). Published February 2027, open through March 19, 2027, executed no later than July 4, 2027

Subrecipients have until August 30, 2028 to spend BP2 funds.

The remaining $3,302,020 of contractual is the Year 2 vendor bench — a technical assistance center for the roughly 80 BP1 subrecipients, five-year service commitment auditing, a BP1 gap analysis and sustainability plan, staffing extenders, HEDIS calculations, a Traditional Healing Practices 1115 waiver, and a $500,000 Rural Value Access Network vendor still listed as Pending. We have the winning firms and their contact information in our databases, accessible via RHTP Verified Intelligence.

Four of those awards ran through Nevada Statewide Contract #99SWC-S2340, Consulting, Marketing and Education Services, which has 22 vendors on it; the staffing award ran through #99SWC-NV26-27688, a NASPO ValuePoint participating addendum with two. Being on the statewide contract is the door, and the field behind it is thin — ten vendors solicited for the service commitment audit, two proposals; six for the TA center, two; five for the gap analysis, three; five for the rural TA center, one, and it came in over budget.

Lots to analyze! I am publishing a special Saturday edition tomorrow with a Nevada deep dive for paid subscribers. Tons of detail and easy-to-consume info.

Read more

• 2026 Q2 Newsletter Activity Index: state-by state, topic-by-topic deeplinks

• Q2 RFP Review / Q3 RFP Watcher: Every procurement from Q2, near-term contracting outlook, and state-by-state analysis

• The 50-State RHTP Field Guide: downloadable PDF with RHT personality, program maturity, federal outlays, open procurement…

Read more

In this issue:

• Virginia’s NSVRC posts the Q&A Addendum for Mobile and Hybrid Care, and says yes to for-profit and vendor-led applicants two days before applications close

• Mississippi announces 167 Rural Health Transformation Program Awards Totaling More Than $104 Million

• South Carolina posts its SC RHTP Year 1 Award List, 228 projects for $167,299,900.69

Virginia‘s NSVRC posts the Request for Applications – Q&A Addendum, Virginia Rural Health Transformation Program Mobile and Hybrid Care, and says yes to for-profit and vendor-led applicants two days before applications close

The addendum we flagged as delayed on September 12 went up yesterday: 20 questions, four pages. Applications for the $4,217,563 RFA are still due September 18, by email to bdavis@nsvregion.org.

Nearly every answer is “Yes.” What that opens:

• Virginia for-profit mobile-health technology companies can apply directly (Q13)

• A healthcare distributor can be the primary applicant, with the manufacturer and a licensed provider as implementation partners (Q1)

• The main RHTP investment can be technology and infrastructure, with licensed partners delivering the clinical services (Q7)

• Mobile technology plus CHWs plus community access points plus telehealth counts as a mobile/hybrid model, no vehicle required (Q10)

• Applicants headquartered outside the region can apply (Q14), and partners don’t need SAM.gov registration or a UEI (Q16)

• Separate applications to multiple Virginia Planning District Commission RFAs are allowed if the costs don’t overlap (Q18)

The one thing NSVRC wouldn’t bless is lining up clinical partners after award. Here’s the answer it gave three times:

Where clinical partnerships are necessary for implementation, a competitive application has the partnerships necessary to complete the proposed program within the given timeline.

The askers are mostly vendors: a device distributor, a mobile-health technology company, and one by name, Appalachian Access, which wants to be a lead applicant’s “contracted implementation, deployment, technology, and patient-navigation partner.” NSVRC says it will keep answering questions until the deadline, so the addendum may grow.

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