In this issue:

• Idaho moves the SUD Prevention and Behavioral Health Prevention vendor conferences a day earlier, to 1 p.m. and 2 p.m. MDT September 3

• New Mexico announces a Rooted in New Mexico (RiNM) Q&A and an Amendment and posts neither, seven days from close

• North Dakota closes Coordinating and Connecting Care, the last of 25 Year 1 opportunities, and the applicant counts now total 793

• Arkansas posts its Year 1 RHTP THRIVE and PACT Awards, $149,177,618.45 to 31 organizations across 50 projects

Consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Idaho moves the SUD Prevention and Behavioral Health Prevention vendor conferences and updates rural map

Both solicitations posted August 21 and we covered them on August 24 — $400,000 each, both due September 18. The vendor conferences were set for September 4, SUD Prevention at 11 a.m. to noon and Behavioral Health Prevention at 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. The funding page was updated yesterday and both moved to September 3, SUD Prevention at 1 p.m. to 2 p.m. MDT and Behavioral Health Prevention at 2 p.m. to 3 p.m. MDT, back to back.

The Teams links changed with the times. SUD Prevention is Laserfiche entry 37401; Behavioral Health Prevention is entry 37413. If you calendared the old invitations, they are dead.

Also: Idaho forces a new grain in the geography tracker

Idaho DHW replaced its RHTP eligibility map on August 27, withdrawing the earlier map and city lists as incorrect. The replacement publishes 225 named places in two classes: 196 eligible rural cities, and 29 cities under 25,000 residents that sit inside urban areas and are individually eligible. Eighteen of those 29 had been listed as ineligible in the withdrawn appendix. Three more — Star, Garden City and Hidden Springs — flipped from ineligible to eligible in Ada County alone, a county the old appendix called entirely urban.

Modeling it broke our schema in a useful way. The tracker had a Municipality grain built for New Jersey townships, which are county subdivisions and never cross a county line. Idaho’s are Census places, which do. Star is the proof, and it comes from Idaho’s own withdrawn document: listed as ineligible under Ada and simultaneously eligible under Canyon as “only Canyon Co. annexed parts.” The Census Bureau records Star as spanning both counties. There is no single county it belongs to, so a county-embedded identifier cannot describe it.

Idaho is now on the tracker at a new Place grain keyed to 7-digit Census place codes — 37 records covering the statewide tract rule, the seven partially-urban counties, and all 29 within-urban cities. The remaining 196 are scoped and ready.

One caveat for anyone reading the list as a target list: 31 of the 196 eligible rural cities are unincorporated — census-designated places or, in one case, an Air Force base. They are eligible geography with no municipal government to receive a subgrant.

The withdrawn appendices are still sitting inside solicitation packets that applicants downloaded before the correction. Six Idaho competitions close September 7 and 8.

Read more

• Michigan puts a number on the pipeline in its July 2026 RHTP newsletter: seven GFOs in Budget Period 1, five of them workforce

• New Mexico answers six questions on RFA 27-630-8000-0037 Ob/Gyn Services and opens the door to telehealth-only bids

• Missouri extends IFB #DSS26015-01 ToRCH Care Smart Growth and Service Line Modification (Horizon 2) to 2 p.m. September 1

• Colorado Raises Its Capital Cap to 20% and Warns Grantees About Unspent Money

• Montana issues RHTP Emergency Medical Dispatch, DPHHS-RFP-2027-0692AB, a single statewide contract closing September 23

• Minnesota opens Analysis of the Rural Maternity Care System and Rural Telehealth Services

Michigan puts a number on the pipeline in its July 2026 RHTP newsletter: seven GFOs in Budget Period 1, five of them workforce

Seven Grant Funding Opportunities are coming in Budget Period 1 — five of them for the Workforce for Wellness initiative, and one each for the Chronic Disease Collaborative Care Fund and the Improving Care and Access through Transportation Grant Program. We covered the $34.2M workforce round on July 10 and the $12M transportation program on July 22; what we did not have until now is the denominator.

The July newsletter also sets the next date. From MDHHS:

Please also note that we expect to receive notification from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) regarding Budget Period 2 awards in October. Following that announcement, we will release information about the timeline for additional GFOs designed to complement and expand upon the investments made during Budget Period 1.

Eligibility runs wide — 501(c)(3) nonprofits, private and public entities, local health departments, federally recognized Michigan tribes, and universities — with one carve-out: federally funded Indian Health Clinics may participate but are not eligible to be awardees.

GFOs do not post to the RHTP page. They post to EGrAMS: go to egrams-mi.com/mdhhs, select Search Grants, check Open and Competitive, click Find.

New Mexico answers six questions on RFA 27-630-8000-0037 Ob/Gyn Services and opens the door to telehealth-only bids

$1,000,000 for Ob/Gyn services in Cibola, McKinley, San Juan, Valencia, and Catron counties, released August 6, applications due 11:59 p.m. MST September 10. Amendment 1 posted August 25 with six questions, and four of the six answers widen the field rather than narrow it:

• Telehealth counts. “Yes, telehealth Ob/Gyn services to patients located in McKinley County would qualify” — the patient must be in an eligible county, the clinician does not.

• No labor and delivery required. An outpatient model of gynecological exams, prenatal and postpartum care, screenings, family planning, and menopause management qualifies.

• You do not need an existing program. “Yes, an organization could apply to establish new Ob/Gyn services in the allowable counties.”

• Non-clinical staff may prepare and submit through the Euna portal, with an authorized representative signing Appendix C.

Eligible provider types are OB/GYN (MD or DO), CNM, CNP in women’s health or family practice, and PA. Contact is Jordan Engler, Contracts and Procurement Manager, Jordan.Engler@hca.nm.gov.

One caveat, stated plainly: neither the RFA nor HCA’s August 12 release names RHTP as the funding source, and the funding period runs October 1, 2026 to June 30, 2027 — New Mexico’s fiscal year end, not an RHTP budget period. It sits on the same HCA page as the Rural Health Innovation Fund and the CRHSI solicitation. Treat the funding line as unconfirmed.

Missouri extends IFB #DSS26015-01 ToRCH Care Smart Growth and Service Line Modification (Horizon 2) to 2 p.m. September 1

We flagged the missing close date on July 30 and again on August 19; it was never printed on the DSS rural health page. Amendment #01, issued August 18, replaces the original IFB in full and moves the bid deadline from August 28 to 2 p.m. Tuesday, September 1. The program also picked up a house name in the amendment: Horizon 2.

Terms are unchanged — nearly $40 million across Program Years 1 and 2, awards up to $5 million each, final amount pending CMS approval, and projects must align with ToRCH Care priorities and one of maternal health, behavioral health, or diagnostics and outpatient care. Against Missouri’s roughly $216 million a year, Horizon 2 is under 10% of what the state has to move across those two years.

The more useful document is the one posted next to the IFB. The attendance record from the August 11 pre-proposal teleconference runs 241 entries — six DSS staff and 235 outside them. Mercy, BJC HealthCare, Freeman Health and Mosaic Life Care are on it, so are the Missouri Hospital Association and the Missouri Primary Care Association, and so is McKinsey. Whatever else nearly $40 million in Missouri is, it is not a thin field.

Utah’s SHIFT 3.4 closes the same day. Nobody coordinated September; everyone is aiming at the same October end of Year 1.

Colorado Raises Its Capital Cap to 20% and Warns Grantees About Unspent Money

Colorado HCPF Deputy Medicaid Director Cristen Bates used an August 27 letter to RHTP partners to correct the state’s grant guidance: 20%, not 15%, of total RHTP funding may go to Capital Expenditures and Infrastructure — CMS Category J, covering minor building alterations, renovations, and equipment upgrades. Applicants who built budgets against 15% just gained five points of capital headroom, after the fact.

The rest of the letter previews contracting. HCPF expects partial awards, because its dynamic application process let a single submission cover multiple of the eight grant programs. It also expects to ask some applicants whether they would accept an award under a different program than the one they applied to — a telehealth project can read as technology innovation, workforce, or sustainable care, and HCPF anticipates oversubscription in some programs and undersubscription in others. Post-award, grantees get CMS’s 10% budget-line flexibility without an amendment, a budget amendment process for anything larger, and annual budget and narrative resubmissions.

The sharp edge is at the end. CMS rescores states each year, that score sets up to 25% of the next year’s budget, and CMS officials have said verbally that unspent state funds return to the federal government. HCPF is awaiting written guidance and is already scoping ways to recycle unspent money in-state — supplemental awards to existing grantees, funding for applicants that weren’t awarded, quick-execute intergovernmental contracts.

Awards land by the end of September.

Also from Colorado re: national best practices query

The Department is soliciting information from hospitals as it relates to a legislative request for information from the Joint Budget Committee. Specifically, the Department is looking for suggestions from Colorado teaching hospitals, academic medical centers, and rural and critical access hospitals who receive medical education funding on any national best practices that could be successful in Colorado.

If you have any information to share, please email HCPF Hospital Regulatory at HCPF_Hospitalregulatory@state.co.us.

Montana issues RHTP Emergency Medical Dispatch, DPHHS-RFP-2027-0692AB, a single statewide contract closing September 23

DPHHS announced it this morning; the RFP opened August 25 on eMACS. It sits under the Innovative Care Models initiative.

Thirty-five of Montana’s 58 Public Safety Answering Points run on a state-sponsored emergency medical dispatch platform that the state says will soon be obsolete. From the notice:

While the state houses 58 total PSAPs, the final vendor scope will depend on how many local centers elect to participate in the upgraded system.

That is the number to price against. The floor is 35, the ceiling is 58, and nobody knows where it lands until after award. The procurement is intended to result in a single contract for software, implementation, integration, training, support, maintenance, and related services.

Dates, all through bids.mt.gov: open August 25, questions close 2 p.m. MDT September 9, bids close 2 p.m. MDT September 23. Program contact is HHSRuralHealthTransformation@mt.gov.

The notice carries the CMS funding statement in full — $233,509,358.76, 100 percent CMS/HHS — so this one is unambiguously RHTP. And on August 18 we wrote up the August 6 Stakeholder Advisory Committee deck, which said three procurements were still to post in August. This is one of them.

Read more

In this issue:

• Louisiana prints its Year 1 award calendar — 505 applications against $95.5 million, with award announcements running through mid-September

• Louisiana CMS state policy action scorecard

• West Virginia opens Increasing Home Dialysis Access, roughly $2 million and closing September 9

• Alabama awards 138 ARHTP Round 1 grants worth $143,745,821, four of five initiatives over their advertised ceilings

Louisiana publishes Year 1 award calendar in Advisory Council Meeting Slides— 505 applications against $95.5 million

The first meeting of the RHTP Advisory Council seated under Governor Landry’s Executive Order JML 26-032, and the deck carries the one table nobody else has published: how many applications each Year 1 program drew, what it will pay out, and when the state says it will announce.

• Rural Clinician Credit Bank — 136 applications — $10 million — mid-August

• Capital Improvement Program — 160 applications — $41.60 million — late August

• Telehealth — 79 applications — $4.71 million — late August

• Collaborative Provider Model — 37 applications — $3 million — early September

• Alternative Payment Model — 31 applications — $30 million — early September

• Care conveners / navigation network — 25 applications — $3.5 million — mid-September

• Food is Medicine — 37 applications — $2.7 million — mid-September

That is $95.51 million of Louisiana’s $208,374,447.57 Budget Period 1 award, or 45.8%, leaving roughly $112.9 million — 54% of Year 1 — outside these seven competitions. The rest is not going out competitively: alongside the 8 competitive funding opportunities, ORHTS reports 5 funding opportunities for specialized expertise partnerships and 12 for expedited partnerships.

Alternative Payment Model is the one to look at — $30 million against 31 applications, the best ratio on the board, and roughly a third of everything being awarded competitively.

The annual report and the Year 2 continuation request are both due to CMS August 31. The quarterly report is due November 29 and covers obligations through October 30. Next monthly ORHTS webinar is Thursday, September 3, 9–10 AM CT; the next Advisory Council meeting is Thursday, November 5, House Committee Room 3, and its agenda is set to include a complete list of obligated funds by entity type.

Louisiana also published their take on CMS state policy scorecard , and the RHTP Application shows four categories at zero

Half of the total RHTP $50 billion goes out in equal shares. The other half is variable based on “Workload factors”, which are reliant in part on technical measures including state policy actions — SNAP waivers, nutrition CME, certificate of need, licensure compacts, scope of practice, short-term limited-duration insurance, remote care services, and health and lifestyle. Each is worth between 1.75% and 3.75%, and CMS scores them off its own data rather than off what a state says about itself.

These do not stop mattering after the application. From the CMS applicants webinar:

Workload factors will be re-scored every year based on progress the state makes in its initiatives and state policy actions.

Louisiana is the first state I have seen publish where it actually landed, in its own words:

The four zeros are the Year 2 legislative agenda: psychology and physician assistant compacts, pharmacist and dental hygienist scope. Louisiana thinks it can retire two of them without passing anything, by submitting its 2024 universal licensure law as evidence for the compact score.

One interesting note: Certificate of Need. Louisiana names the Cicero Institute as the source behind the number CMS gave it.

Read more

• Alabama closes all Year 1 initiative application periods and points applicants to Year 2

• Oklahoma posts the August 2026 Touchpoint deck: 29 programs launched, 15 funding opportunities, and three Budget Period 2 questions it does not answer

• West Virginia adds Rural Health Link — Establish Regional Hubs & Mobility Coordinators, up to $7.1 million and closing September 8

• Kentucky routed $10.5M through a foundation for its Rural Community Hubs Hub Leadership Opportunity, and nobody has been named

• Kansas posts its approved Year 1 Budget Narrative — $221.9 million, and it names the vendors

Alabama closes all Year 1 initiative application periods and says applications reopen for Year 2

Year 1 initiative application periods are now closed. Applications will reopen for Year 2 and interested applicants will have a chance to apply or reapply.

Oklahoma posts the August 2026 Touchpoint Webinar deck, and leaves the three Budget Period 2 questions unanswered on the slide

Thirteen slides, posted with the recording the same day. The Budget Period 1 recap:

29 RHTP programs launched, across six initiatives, 100% of Oklahoma’s programs 15 Funding opportunities launched, or expected to launch by the end of this year 11 Program partners selected, from peer state agencies to academic institutions 75 Rural counties represented in currently launched programs, 100% of Oklahoma’s rural counties

The timeline graphic on slide 8 puts seven procurements launched at over $46 million, which the deck does not reconcile against the 15. Microgrants reached 68 rural counties, 11 entity types and 8 project types. South Western Oklahoma Development Authority, an OSDH subrecipient, issued 1,036 trip-reimbursement vouchers in April–June 2026 totaling $27,121.36. OSU Center for Rural Health has trained 40 community paramedics across twelve rural counties. Rural Regional Reorientation has run 5 virtual kickoffs and 16 in-person county cluster meetings for 386 attendees, with five named facilitators, all of them contractors on .CTR addresses.

Slide 10 poses three questions and prints no answers: whether Year 1 awardees need to reapply for Budget Period 2, whether their funding is guaranteed, and when BP2 funding information will be available. The answers, if they came, are in the recording.

The dates that matter: the BP2 report and funding request are due to CMS August 30. BP1 funds must be obligated by October 30. Budget Period 2 runs October 31, 2026 through October 30, 2027, and Year 2 funding opportunities begin to open in January 2027 — which is also when the next engagement sessions resume. Several slides still carry the “Confidential draft for discussion only - Pre-decisional” watermark.

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

In this issue:

• California posts an EHR Readiness Assessment that every CalRHT EHR Modernization subrecipient is required to complete

• Wisconsin closes its last two RHTP grants and its current grant funding opportunities list is now empty

• Idaho posts SUD Prevention and Behavioral Health Prevention, $400,000 each and both due September 18

• West Virginia adds Smart Care Catalyst and a fourth Rural Health Link solicitation, closing September 3 and 4

• Alaska has now announced $160,701,975 across 161 projects, and $125,984,552 of it landed on Friday

California posts an EHR Readiness Assessment that every CalRHT EHR Modernization subrecipient is required to complete

Version 1.0, finalized 08/18/2026, added to the CalRHT funding page Friday. Thirty core questions on a 1-to-5 scale, 1 being Not Ready and 5 Optimized, plus ten optional deep-dive questions for larger organizations. It produces domain averages and an overall score: 1.0–2.0 Foundational, 2.1–3.0 Developing, 3.1–4.0 Operational, 4.1–5.0 Optimized. HCAI puts the effort at 30 to 60 minutes for a team of three to six, or one person with outside input for a solo provider, repeated annually.

From the document:

Subrecipients of the California Rural Health Transformation (CalRHT) Electronic Health Records (EHR) Modernization Grant are required to complete this assessment.

Wisconsin closes its last two RHTP grants and its current grant funding opportunities list is now empty

Coordinating Care Across Wisconsin: Innovating Healthcare Through Partnership Grants and Community Health Workers Training Providers both closed at 11:59 pm on August 21, and both came off the DHS solicitations list. That list now returns nothing — not one unawarded DHS solicitation of any kind, rural or otherwise. Wisconsin ran the deepest RHTP solicitation slate of any state this summer and has now run through all of it.

Here is what the state has put out against Year 1, at published ceilings:

• Rural technology transformation, Round 1 — up to $61 million, closed. Only organizations named in Wisconsin’s CMS application were eligible; Round 2 comes in 2027.

• Community health worker — $20 million in Year 1, closed August 7

• Rural dental efficiency and access — $10 million, closed July 27

• Care coordination — up to $10 million for a 6-month planning period, closed August 21. The full opportunity goes to planning grant recipients in February 2027, estimated $25 million.

• Community Health Workers Training Providers — $600,000 in Year 1, two to four awards at $150,000 to $300,000, closed August 21

• Sources of Strength Project — unpriced, closed August 5

• WIG: HEART, through the Department of Workforce Development — $4.9 million in Year 1, awards of $500,000 to $10 million, closed August 17

That’s roughly $106.5 million against a first-year award of $203,670,005.21, which leaves about 48% of Wisconsin’s Year 1 never put out through a public solicitation and nothing open to apply to this morning. The RHTP page itself, last revised August 10, still shows care coordination as due August 21. Technical assistance for the next round runs through RHTP-evaluation@wisc.edu at the UW Population Health Institute.

Read more

• Maryland extends the Maryland Healthcare Workforce Data Clearinghouse: Phase 1 Requirements Analysis and Future Planning RFA to August 26

• North Dakota closes 24 of 25 Year 1 opportunities— executed 42 RHTP subawards worth $8,069,454.52

• California RHT Deep-Dive: The $15 Million CMS Made California Move

Maryland extends the Maryland Healthcare Workforce Data Clearinghouse: Phase 1 Requirements Analysis and Future Planning RFA to August 26

Maryland’s RHTP procurement page picked up a new line yesterday, dated 08-20-2026:

Open until: 8/19/2026 Extended until: 8/26/26

We covered this one on July 31, when MDH’s Office of Population Health Improvement called it the last procurement of Budget Period 1. Phase 1 is scoped as planning, not build — inventory the existing workforce-data resources, define initial use cases, produce a strategic roadmap. Nothing in the scope changed.

North Dakota closes 24 of 25 Year 1 opportunities— executed 42 RHTP subawards worth $8,069,454.52

North Dakota HHS has not published an awardee list, a recipient name, or a dollar figure. It has been reporting to FSRS as required, so 42 first-tier subawards to 38 organizations sit on the state’s federal award record, executed April 23 through July 30. That is 4.1 percent of the $198,936,969.55.

The subaward numbers carry the funding opportunity code, so each block maps:

• 210-101xx, 21 awards, $1,489,289.68 — the regional structure going in first. Eight regional development councils at roughly $64,000 each, all executed in five days in late April: Tri-County, Souris Basin, North Central, Red River, Lake Agassiz, South Central Dakota, Lewis and Clark, Roosevelt-Custer. Then thirteen local public health units, cities and counties at $51,000 to $80,000.

• 210-211xx, 2 awards, $1,884,931 — Train In Place. The funding opportunity said “$2,025,000 … an estimated 15 awards for approximately $135,000.” What executed was North Dakota State University at $1,280,795 and the University of North Dakota at $604,136. Forty-five organizations applied.

• 210-221xx, 16 awards, $3,922,422.54 — Workforce Retention for Critical Access Hospitals, most at or near $270,000: Christian Unity $304,614, West River Health Services $276,343.64, Wishek Hospital-Clinic Association $274,264, Trinity Health $273,150, Towner County Medical Center $270,000, SMP Health St Aloisius $270,000, Sanford Health Network North $270,000 twice, Linton Hospital $269,900, Northwood Deaconess $264,600, Carrington Health Center $252,133, Hazen Memorial $250,000, St Lukes $234,490, St Andrews $201,548.45, Presentation Medical Center $178,548.45, Nelson County Health System $62,831.

Train In Place is the one to read twice. Fifteen grants of $135,000 became two university awards, which means the work did not go away — it became a subcontract at NDSU or UND rather than a grant you apply for. That is the same move that turns an undersubscribed line into a consolidated one, and it is worth assuming for the six opportunities above.

Read more

• Louisiana launches RHTLA.net, a parish-by-parish public data platform for its $208.4M Year 1

• Maine’s RHTP Advisory Committee meets again in September, with two meeting decks now in the archive

• New York makes the cybersecurity resilience assessment a gate on future RHTP cyber funding, interest form due August 31

• Idaho puts open Teams links on nine vendor events running August 24 through September 2

• North Dakota closes Technology as an Extender at 49 applicants, and its funding table now totals 770 applications

• North Carolina sends applicants to the NC ROOTS Hubs, where Trillium is the only hub with live RFAs

• South Dakota announces Rural Health Transformation Technology and Data Grants — 82 grants, $90 million, no recipient named

Louisiana launches RHTLA.net, a parish-by-parish public data platform for its $208.4M Year 1

RHTLA is the first state RHTP site I’ve seen built as a data product rather than a page of PDF links. Four landing sections — Rurality, Needs assessment, Programs, Data & methods — plus an Open Atlas GIS layer.

Every headline figure carries its source and vintage inline: 1.1M rural residents (ACS 5-yr, 2024), 542 ZIP codes assessed (ORHTS rurality file, 6/26), 377 rural facilities on file (registry, 6/26, coverage varies).

The methods page publishes the rural accessibility index weights — drive time 30%, social vulnerability 25%, chronic disease 20%, provider supply 15%, broadband 10% — and marks them provisional pending ORHTS sign-off and external academic review. A source inventory names the steward and refresh cadence for each of eight datasets.

Built with three University of Louisiana at Lafayette units: the Center for Applied Artificial Intelligence, the NSF-funded AHeAD Center, and the Louisiana Center for Health Innovation.

A key component I will be watching is the “Committed outcomes: establishing baseline” section of the Programs page. Every state has to produce this material. Quarterly and annual programmatic reports, fund usage disaggregated by initiative, evidentiary documentation for each completed checkpoint, and quantitative metrics all flow to CMS, and progress reporting began this month.

We are tracking all of these metrics— paid subscribers will get more detail on this in our Q3 Report, due out on October 1.

Maine’s RHTP Advisory Committee meets again in September, with two meeting decks now in the archive

The committee is roughly 30 partners from more than 20 stakeholder groups, convened by Maine DHHS in May 2026 and meeting monthly. Meetings are open to the public in listen-only mode; public comment is not taken. The September date, time and webinar link are still TBD. We’ll be watching for it.

Here’s a rundown of the first two meetings.

July 1, 2026:

• Four program-wide metrics named: well-controlled blood pressure in rural areas, 30-day all-cause readmissions, non-financial barriers to care, and financial health of rural hospitals.

• Three Year 1 provider funds introduced: $30M for EMR replacement and upgrades, $28.5M for alternative payment model transition, $30M for hospital efficiency.

• CMS-approved eligible provider matrix published by fund — acute care hospitals, FQHCs, RHCs, independent rural primary care practices, CCBHCs and OTPs, with eligibility varying by fund.

• Hospital efficiency cohort described as “5-10 hospitals at highest risk of financial instability,” criteria still being developed.

August 5, 2026:

• Full RHTP staff roster published for the first time: Director Kristen McAuley, Deputy Director Laura Beaumont starting August 31, associate directors for budget and compliance and for data and evaluation, and four of five initiative leads. The Access lead is vacant and interviewing.

• Hospital efficiency cohort identified at 11 hospitals, above the earlier 5-10 range, with invitation letters sent and a press release issued.

• EMR fund sized: roughly 70 eligible ownership organizations across roughly 330 sites, with rural sites drawing about 50% more than comparable non-rural sites. APM fund: 58 eligible organizations.

• Access slide footnotes that two activities in Maine’s original proposal — provider payments for uncompensated care, and for Essential Health Benefits to the uninsured — were not allowed by CMS, and the funds moved to Initiative 5.

• Year 1 reporting will cover activities through July 31.

One note for anyone tracking the hospital efficiency work: the August deck exists in two editions. The version exported August 12 attributes the cohort’s technical assistance to “Roux and associated consultants.” The version now posted, exported August 16, reads “consultants who are approved by DHHS and OAHC.” No procurement for that work has been posted.

New York makes the cybersecurity resilience assessment a prerequisite for future funding in Introduction to Initiative 4: Cybersecurity Resilience for Rural NY, with an August 31 interest-form deadline

August 31 is the deadline to submit the Cybersecurity Resilience Interest Form, and the deck says plainly what the form buys:

Completing the cybersecurity resilience assessment is required for facilities seeking future RHTP cybersecurity-related funding consideration. Future funding or support is subject to program eligibility, availability, NYSDOH guidance, and subject to CMS review and approval.

Thirteen slides, a half-hour session on August 17, presented by the Department of Health with no individual named. The webinar is on YouTube. No dollar figure attached to Initiative 4 — the only number in the deck is New York’s $212,058,207.80 Budget Period 1 award. No vendor or product named either; the three services are listed generically as a Cyber Threat Intel Portal, an Incident Response Retainer, and a Cybersecurity Learning Platform, with the assessment tool described only as “an easy-to-use web-based platform.”

The baseline is NIST CSF 2.0 per facility, with HHS Healthcare and Public Health Cybersecurity Performance Goals deferred to Phase 2. Year 1 is rural hospitals only; pharmacies, nursing homes, long-term care and school districts come in Years 2 through 5. Assessments run August through November 2026. The interest form has no URL in the deck — facilities are pointed at rhtpcyber@health.ny.gov.

Also gone from the page: every deadline date. The RCHI extension line that read “The Application deadline for RCHI has been extended to Tuesday, July 14, 2026” was removed yesterday and nothing replaced it.

Idaho posts and passcodes nine vendor events, running August 24 through September 2

• Healthcare Infrastructure Support — webinar noon–1 p.m. MDT Aug. 24. Join · Meeting ID 272 420 885 383 370 · Passcode ew367RN2

• Crisis Intervention Training — vendor workshop 2–3 p.m. MDT Aug. 25. Join · Meeting ID 287 862 030 303 888 · Passcode ae6S4HN7

• Chronic Disease Prevention and Cancer Screening — vendor webinar 10–11 a.m. MDT Aug. 26. Join · Meeting ID 242 674 642 429 059 · Passcode 4L5oV7DR

• Cognitive Health Workforce Response Network — vendor webinar 11 a.m.–noon MDT Aug. 26. Join · Meeting ID 266 089 279 607 927 · Passcode po3AC9YG

• School-Based Family Support Hubs — vendor conference noon–1 p.m. MDT Aug. 26. Join · Meeting ID 256 425 357 365 755 · Passcode Lw6Gz7pk

• Idaho Cognitive Care Pathway Network — vendor webinar 2–3 p.m. MDT Aug. 26. Join · Meeting ID 260 951 781 850 574 · Passcode B7bZ62hp

• Diabetes Prevention and Management — vendor webinar 3–4 p.m. MDT Aug. 26. Join · Meeting ID 264 991 258 218 371 · Passcode NZ7RE3FS

• Healthcare Infrastructure Support — second webinar noon–1 p.m. MDT Aug. 31. Join · Meeting ID 241 290 629 349 421 · Passcode DV7mB3U9

• Statewide Chronic Disease Education Network — vendor conference 11 a.m.–noon MDT Sept. 2. Join · Meeting ID 249 933 389 363 796 · Passcode vt2pa2Rt

Healthcare Career Advancement, the $12.52 million State Board of Education solicitation, still has no event on the calendar. Questions on it are due August 31.

North Dakota closes Technology as an Extender at 49 applicants, and its funding table now totals 770 applications across 23 closed opportunities

Technology as an Extender flipped from “Apply Now” to “Closed (49 Applicants)” yesterday. It is about $5 million with an estimated 20 awards averaging $250,000, which puts roughly two and a half applicants on every award.

Two opportunities are still open — Non-Emergency Medical Transportation Acquisition and Coordinating and Connecting Care — and both sit under Bringing High-Quality Care Closer to Home.

Demand runs several times the money wherever a state discloses it. South Dakota took 144 applications requesting $336 million against $90 million available, below.

Read more

In this issue:

• Vermont closes out Year 1 with no dates set for Year 2

• Missouri adds a ToRCH Care alignment test to IFB #DSS26015

• Oklahoma opens ROOTS Year 2, $10,000 per site for 60 rural schools

• Idaho posts three more solicitations totaling $111.7 million

Consider becoming a paid subscriber.

Vermont closes out Year 1 on its RHT Program RFPs/NOFOs page with no dates set for Year 2

The page is now a closed list with a mailing-list signup on top:

All Year 1 RFP and NOFO opportunities have closed. When open, Year 2 opportunities will be posted here. The exact dates for those postings are to be determined. Please sign up for our Listserv/Newsletter here to get updates about future opportunities.

Missouri adds a ToRCH Care alignment test to IFB #DSS26015, the nearly $40 million Smart Growth and Service Line Modification solicitation

One clause changed on the state’s rural health page yesterday. It used to read “Project should align with one of the following priority service lines.” It now reads:

Project should align with ToRCH Care priorities and one of the following priority service lines:

The three service lines are unchanged — maternal health, behavioral health, and diagnostics and outpatient care. What is new is that a project now has to clear two tests instead of one, and the ToRCH Care priorities are set by the 27 Community Hub Areas and their Hub Anchors, not by the applicant.

Everything else holds: nearly $40 million spanning Program Years 1 and 2, individual awards up to $5 million, final funding amount pending CMS budget approval. The bid close date is still not printed on the DSS page, which is where it was when we flagged it on July 30. It lives on the DSS26015 listing on MissouriBUYS.

Read more

• Alaska fielded $2.5B in Year 1 requests against $272M and has notified 19 of 394 applicants, per RHTP Advisory Council materials

• California posts CalRHT EHR Modernization Grant FAQs three days before the August 21 close, and rules out vendors, HIEs and consortiums

• North Dakota answers a health technology company’s neutral-convener question on Coordinating and Connecting Care, $1 million closing August 26

• Montana has operationalized $157 million of its $233.5 million Year 1 award, per the Aug. 6 Stakeholder Advisory Committee materials, with three procurements still to post in August

• Montana names MHREF the winner of its Center of Excellence Implementation Partner contract, $105.5 million

• Nebraska has $8,344,000 out under Farm-to-School Procurement and Policy Technical Assistance (TA), closing August 31

• Mississippi is hiring a consultant through Knowledge Services posting 162359 to write its statewide Health Information Exchange solicitation

Alaska fielded $2.5B in Year 1 requests against $272M and has notified 19 of 394 applicants, per RHTP Advisory Council materials

Total Year 1 asks were approximately $2.5 billion against the state’s $272,174,855.72 award. Betsy Wood, Director of the Office of Health Savings, told the Advisory Council on July 1 that most Letters of Interest were not advanced for that reason alone — requests far exceeded available resources.

The funnel, as published August 17: nearly 1,800 LOIs from 864 unique organizations, narrowed to 403 implementation and 28 planning proposals from 224 unique organizations, of which 366 implementation and 28 planning applications were actually submitted. As of August 7, 13 implementation and 6 planning projects had received notices of intent to award.

Decisions release every Friday. DOH names its own drags: missing required documentation, additional information needed before a notice can issue, CMS review under ongoing guidance updates, and budget accuracy.

New Business on the agenda was Year 2 planning. Four more regional meetings are scheduled — Valdez September 3, Greater Anchorage September 22, Juneau November 12, and Utqiagvik/Northslope undated — and the deck says takeaways will be integrated into Year 2 planning. Reports from each meeting go back to communities.

California posts CalRHT EHR Modernization Grant FAQs: rules out vendors, HIEs and consortiums

Applications close Friday, August 21 at 3:00 p.m. PT. We covered the opening on July 21 — the scoring rubric, the rip-and-replace-only rule, the Data Exchange Framework connectivity plan. The FAQ adds the eligibility answer that matters most to this audience: only eligible rural provider organizations may apply. Vendors, health information exchanges and consortiums cannot.

Not fundable: EHR upgrades, optimization or feature additions; anything spent before the grant agreement is executed; maintenance past the budget period; QHIO and HIE participation fees. First-year licensing and subscription fees only.

Separately, the funding page this morning labeled Accelerator Partners and Expand and Support Rural Workforce Capacity closed and dropped both application-portal links.

North Dakota answers a health technology company’s neutral-convener question on Coordinating and Connecting Care, $1 million closing August 26

210-362 closes Tuesday, August 26 at 5:00 p.m. CT — roughly $1 million, one award, operating period ending August 31, 2027, indirect capped at 10%, no capital expenditures. It buys planning products for a neutral, sustainable, statewide Community Information Exchange and closed-loop referral system.

Four questions went up dated Aug. 17, and the third one is the demand-side tell:

Can you clarify how HHS will evaluate the neutral-convener requirement for applicants that are affiliated with or part of a healthcare technology company, provided the proposed planning work is vendor…

The answer holds the line: maintaining a neutral perspective is fundamental to a fair and open evaluation. The solicitation language it points back to bars favoring “a particular healthcare system, provider, payer, technology vendor, proprietary technology solution or other organizational interest.” A vendor-affiliated entity asked whether it could convene the process that will shape a statewide CIE, and North Dakota did not say no — it said prove it.

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

In the news: missed this last week— interesting story from Steven Allen Adams at The Parkersburg News and Sentinel: Lawmakers question progress of Rural Health Transformation Program.

We are tracking Delegate Administrators via our RHTP Verified Intelligence service.

In this issue:

• North Dakota posts applicant counts on three more closed opportunities: 23, 14, and 6

• Pennsylvania opens Rapid Response Stabilization — Round 2 today, $35 million at $1 million per location, closing August 24

• West Virginia’s Mobility Platform Software closes August 25 and its EMS Community Paramedicine solicitation closes August 28

• Wyoming‘s advisory committee divides $205 million

• Alaska is up to 56 awards and $34,717,909, and its award list shows three ways to get one

North Dakota posts applicant counts on three more closed opportunities: 23, 14, and 6

Every closed opportunity on the funding page now carries a count. The three that were blank last week:

• Hospital-Based Wellness Equipment (210-122) — 23 applicants, against roughly $500,000 and an estimated 10 awards at about $50,000 each

• Harnessing Artificial Intelligence Innovation (210-430) — 14 applicants, against $1,000,000 and approximately five awards at about $200,000 each

• Self-Serve Dispensing Kiosks in Pharmacies (210-441) — 6 applicants, against approximately $600,000 and one anticipated award

School-Based Wellness Equipment drew 68 applicants; the hospital version of the same equipment grant drew 23. Six pharmacies competing for a single $600,000 award is the tightest ratio on the board.

North Dakota remains the only state publishing this. Nobody else lets you see the size of the field before the award list posts.

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

In this issue:

• Pennsylvania posts Rapid Response Stabilization Round 2 FAQs three days before the webform opens

• New Mexico opens its Stakeholder Advisory Committee and puts four RFPs under evaluation

• New York posts the August 12 deck: Rural Community Health Integration drew 91 applications and $156 million in requests

• Montana opens an RFI on health care workforce mental health and asks vendors how to structure the procurement

• West Virginia releases its first two Rural Health Link solicitations, both due August 26

• Utah opens SHIFT 3.3 Rural EMS, $12.5 million, closing September 13

• Kansas awards $1,007,152 to seven organizations under Community Health Worker + Accountable Food is Medicine

• Florida says Year 1 sub-awards are made and sets a September 23–24 convening in Jacksonville

Pennsylvania posts Rapid Response Stabilization Program – Round 2 FAQs three days before the webform opens

DHS starts accepting eligibility certifications Monday, August 17. The FAQ says the webform opens at 7:45 a.m.; the bulletin says 8. The document is dated August 11 and went up August 13. The difference from Round 1 that matters:

For example, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (”CMS”) imposes a twenty percent annual cap on funding for capital expenditures and infrastructure. Due to this cap, no funding for renovations and structural improvements is available through this funding opportunity.

The rest, in short:

• Supplies and equipment only. No capital expenditures, educational awards, P3N HIO onboarding, EHR systems, mobile health units, ambulances, or ambulance enhancements.

• Vehicles that are not ambulances or mobile health units are allowable, including courier vehicles for lab specimens, if you explain how they expand access.

• Software licenses, implementation services, and initial user training are allowable. Recurring subscription fees are not.

• One payment per eligible location, minimum $10,000, maximum $1,000,000. A multi-location request in one region still counts as one payment against that region’s two-payment limit.

• Any location already approved under the first round must be excluded from the request. Include one and the entity is ineligible.

We ran DHS’s correction to Round 2 eligible costs on Tuesday.

Read more

In this issue:

• California posts the recording of its Workforce Development Recruitment and Retention webinar

• Alaska softens its Year 2 timing and adds three more regional meeting dates

• North Carolina rebuilds its RHTP homepage around six initiatives and a 40-member advisory committee

• North Dakota’s Childcare for the Rural Health Workforce closes with 9 applicants against 38 planned awards

• New York to open Rural Community Health Integration budget period 2 in November, and new applicants are welcome

• Utah opens SHIFT 3.4 New Models of Care five days early, $10 million, closing September 1

• Oklahoma names Pulsara its statewide EMS centralization platform, with no solicitation anywhere

• Georgia awards $26 million for surgical robots to 13 rural hospitals and names the five that lost

California posts Workforce Development Recruitment and Retention webinar recording

For vendors and workforce-development organizations, one of the most consequential details in the webinar was HCAI’s unusually broad view of who can organize and lead a collaborative application.

A vendor or nonprofit does not necessarily have to be a rural healthcare provider—or even be physically located in a rural community—to play the lead coordinating role. When asked specifically whether a San Francisco-based 501(c)(3) workforce organization could lead an application for a consortium of Central Valley healthcare providers, Hovik Khosrovian said yes, provided that the actual participating facilities and professionals receiving the recruitment and retention funding meet the rural requirements.

He characterized such an organization as essentially an administrative partner overseeing funding for multiple facilities. That is particularly notable because HCAI's published program materials identify regional collaborations alongside facilities and organizations as eligible applicants, rather than treating collaboration merely as an optional feature of a provider's proposal.

Alaska softens its Year 2 timing and adds three more regional meeting dates

DOH collapsed “What to expect next” and “Looking ahead” into a single “What’s next” section yesterday, and rewrote the Year 2 sentence. It used to read that DOH anticipates opening a new LOI submission and/or application period for Year 2 “in early fall 2026.” It now reads “as early as fall 2026,” with performance periods potentially starting January 2027.

Three regional meetings were added to the calendar:

• Valdez — September 3, 2026

• Utqiagvik / North Slope — October 27, 2026

• Juneau — November 12, 2026

North Carolina posts about advisory committee

The North Carolina Rural Health Transformation Program Advisory Committee includes more than 40 members representing community organizations, health care providers, elected officials and other partners that will help guide our work in improving access to care in rural North Carolina.

North Carolina has the second-largest rural population in the U.S., with more than 3 million residents living in rural areas. North Carolina’s Rural Health Transformation Program is a statewide initiative, supported by over $213 million in federal funding in year 1 from the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, designed to address longstanding challenges in rural health care access and delivery.

The NCRHTP Advisory Committee will bring community, provider and regional perspectives together to guide how the program is designed and implemented for our rural communities. As the Rural Health Transformation Program grows and evolves, NCDHHS may add additional members to this Committee to ensure a variety of perspectives are included.

Chaired by Secretary Dev Sangvai with Deputy Secretary Debra Farrington as co-chair, first meeting August 5. Seats went to the Kate B. Reynolds Charitable Trust, the NC Rural Center, East Carolina University, the NC Community College System, Cherokee Indian Hospital Authority, Lumbee Tribal Vocational Rehabilitation, Disability Rights NC, and the state departments of Insurance, Commerce, Public Instruction, and Military and Veterans Affairs. This sits on top of the five ROOTS Hubs we covered in June.

North Dakota‘s Childcare for the Rural Health Workforce closes with 9 applicants against 38 planned awards

A total of $3,000,000 in total federal funds is available for this Childcare for the Rural Health Workforce funding opportunity. The awards provided will be dependent on the applications received; 38 awards for approximately $78,000 are expected to be funded.

Nine applications for thirty-eight planned awards. Even if North Dakota funds every applicant at the full estimate, it moves about $702,000 of a $3 million pot and leaves 77 percent of the money unspent. That is the most undersubscribed RHTP opportunity we have found anywhere — it takes the title from Rural Ambulance Modernization at 86 against roughly 110 planned awards, which we ran Tuesday. Community gardens at $160,000 a head drew 45 applicants. Mobile mammography drew 2. Childcare drew 9.

New York to open Rural Community Health Integration budget period 2 in November, and new applicants are welcome

New York held a webinar yesterday and I attended most of it, The state hasn’t posted the deck or video yet, but I wanted to call out some key thing I heard.

Year one in New York is nearly spoken for — every dollar has to be obligated by October 30, meaning an executed contract, a purchase order in process, or staff hired, and the state expects roughly 70 grant and vendor contracts across all four initiatives before that date. RCHI budget period 1 notifications go out by the end of August. Contracts then run to June 30, 2027, with everything spent by September 30, 2027.

Budget period 2 opens in November. Asked whether it would be limited to budget period 1 awardees, the answer was direct: “new applicants will be definitely allowed.” They came back to it twice more unprompted — “if you’re not awarded, for whatever reason, we do encourage you to come back in in year two,” and, for the people who sat this round out, “we know there are other people that chose not to apply… gonna be some opportunities there, too.”

Also: three of New York’s four initiatives have not issued funding guidance at all yet. Primary care, Rural Roots workforce, and technology and cybersecurity are all slated for fall 2026, each administered through a third-party administrator. The split runs roughly: RCHI a little over $76 million, cybersecurity $75 to 80 million, primary care $30 million, workforce about $15 million.

There will be no RFPs, and the state said plainly it does not plan to publish a vendor list. A cybersecurity webinar runs August 17; year one covers hospitals, with long-term care and other provider types phased in across budget periods two through five.

More thorough coverage once the slides and video are published.

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

In this issue:

• North Dakota tells a multi-site hospital system it can file two Technology as an Extender applications under one EIN

• Maryland puts project period start dates on all ten Budget Period 1 funding opportunities

• Utah forecasts SHIFT 3.4 New Models of Care, $10 million opening August 17

• Idaho posts five RHTP subaward solicitations in one day, $14 million and all due September 8

• Four of Idaho’s five new solicitations buy a pass-through administrator, not a service

• Pennsylvania names 35 to its RHTP Advisory Council and opens Regional Rural Care Collaboratives nominations

North Dakota answers the EIN question on Technology as an Extender: apply per location

Two answers went onto the Technology as an Extender FAQ yesterday. The first is a repeat of the eligibility list we ran on August 6, told to an organization headquartered in an urban North Dakota city. The second is new, and it is the useful one:

Can an entity submit two applications under one EIN if those CAHs are in two different cities? Answer: Yes, entities can apply per location. Operating under the same EIN does not prohibit entities from submitting two applications.

Technology as an Extender is about $5 million with an estimated 20 awards averaging $250,000, and it closes Monday, August 18 at 5:00 p.m. CT. A system running critical access hospitals in three towns can now file three applications against a $250,000 average award instead of one. That materially changes who the biggest winner in this round is likely to be, six days before the door shuts.

Worth putting next to Tennessee, whose entity-determination guidance ran in that same August 6 issue and went the other direction — it stopped relying solely on TIN/EIN status and started weighing organizational name, affiliations, and operational structure.

Maryland puts project period start dates on all ten Budget Period 1 funding opportunities

A day after posting $78.6 million in Pillar 2 award offers, Maryland re-datestamped the program page to 08-11-2026 and added an Anticipated Project Period Start Date to every row of the Budget Period 1 table. Here’s the dates:

• Telehealth Needs Assessment (CRISP) — 7/1/2026

• Primary Care Practice Creation and Expansion (MHCC, $6.3M) — 8/1/2026

• NourishMD Expansion (DHCD, $1.6M) — 8/1/2026

• Service Expansion and HIT Advances, Behavioral Health, Innovative Care (MDH + HSCRC, $73M) — 8/15/2026

• Apprenticeship and RAMP Expansion (MD Labor, $3.5M) — 9/1/2026

• Pipeline Training, Provider Recruitment and Retention (MD Labor, $15M) — 9/1/2026

• Food System Aggregation and Local Purchasing (RMC, $4.7M) — 9/1/2026

• Workforce Data Clearinghouse (MDH) — 10/1/2026

• Efficiency of Local Agency Operations (Garrett LHD) — 10/1/2026

• Post Harvest Cold Storage (MDA, $3.7M) — 10/1/2026

Three of those start dates are already in the past, and the $73 million line starts Friday. Maryland issued the award offers for that pillar on August 10, which means the largest single block of money in the state’s Budget Period 1 has a project period beginning five days after the offer letters went out and before a single agreement is executed. Two rows now read “Award Offers” where they used to read a posting window.

Utah forecasts SHIFT 3.4 New Models of Care, $10 million opening August 17

Posted August 11 as Forecasted, estimated open August 17, estimated project start October 5. Up to $10,000,000 and 12 anticipated awards. From the state’s own scope:

“The purpose of this Request for Grant Applications (RFGA) is to transform rural healthcare access and care coordination to drive measurable improvements in health outcomes.” Funded projects “will support innovative solutions in key service areas including mobile care, transportation, prevention, chronic disease management, behavioral health, cancer care, and maternal and child” health.

We first ran SHIFT 3.4 off Utah’s June 27 webinar deck, where it was marked Concepting, at $10 million in Year 1 against $45 million over five, with 10 to 15 awards and roughly $335,000 carved out for non-emergency medical transportation. The award count has settled at 12 and the state now has a date.

Eligibility: Applicants must prove legal operational status in Utah or an eligible border state — Arizona, Colorado, Idaho, or Nevada — with a business license, 501(c) letter, statutory authorization, or tribal resolution depending on entity type. Utah is one of very few states writing out-of-state applicants into eligibility on purpose. SHIFT 3.2 closes Friday and PATH 1.4 closes Monday, so 3.4 opens the same week two others shut.

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For each of these documents— from the RFP to the webinar transcript— we track awards, contracts, and contacts. See the popular Verified Intelligence service to gain access and go deeper.

In this issue:

• California posts webinar presentations and recordings for three CalRHT grant programs

• Idaho posts a Crisis Intervention Training funding opportunity

• Wyoming’s Rural Health Transformation Advisory Committee meets this morning to discuss awards, with no public comment

• North Dakota posts applicant counts: 86 for Rural Ambulance Modernization, 3 for Parents Lead

• North Dakota opens Coordinating and Connecting Care, $1 million for a single statewide planning award

• Virginia opens its first RFAs and publishes the RHT RFA Navigator

• Maryland makes $78.6 million in Pillar 2 award offers to 41 organizations

California posts presentations and recordings for the Accelerator Partners, WDRR, and EHR Modernization grant webinars

Workforce Development Recruitment and Retention​ Grant Webinar | August 4, 2026 | Presentation | Recording Coming Soon

Rural Health Policy Council (RHPC) Meeting #1 | July 28, 2026 | Presentation

Electronic Health Record (EHR) Modernization Grant Webinar | July 27, 2026 | Presentation | Recording

Accelerator Partners Grant Webinar | July 20, 2026 | Presentation | Recording

Idaho posts a Crisis Intervention Training funding opportunity— $2.5M, five-year award

The purpose of this subgrant solicitation is to establish and sustain a statewide Crisis Intervention Team (CIT) training infrastructure that expands access to evidence-based crisis response training for law enforcement, emergency medical services (EMS), dispatch personnel, corrections staff, behavioral health professionals, peer specialists, and community partners serving rural and underserved communities throughout Idaho.

Through this funding opportunity, the Idaho Department of Health and Welfare (DHW) seeks to support the development of regional CIT training hubs. The program will increase Idaho’s capacity to respond effectively to behavioral health crises, improve diversion to appropriate behavioral health services, strengthen cross-system collaboration, and reduce unnecessary involvement with emergency departments, jails, and other high-cost systems of care.

Wyoming‘s Rural Health Transformation Advisory Committee meets this morning to discuss awards, with no public comment

Wyoming’s application portal closed at midnight on August 2. Nine days later the committee that decides where the money goes is meeting. From the state’s notice:

The meeting will convene at 8:00 am in the Turntable room of the Thyra Thomson State Office Building at 444 W. Collins Drive, Casper, Wyoming.

At the meeting, the Committee will discuss Rural Health Transformation Fund awards. Members of the public are invited to attend and listen to the proceedings, either in-person or virtually via Google Meet.

Due to the short timeline and need to keep awards impartial, there will not be an opportunity for public comment.

For more information, contact Monique McBride, Chief Policy & Communication Officer: (307) 777-2438 or monique.mcbride@wyo.gov.

North Dakota posts applicant counts, including 86 for Rural Ambulance Modernization

North Dakota closed two opportunities yesterday, with applicant counts:

• Rural Ambulance Modernization – Closed (86 Applicants)

• Parents Lead: Assessment and Train-the-Trainer Curriculum Development – Closed (3 Applicants).

On the ambulance side, North Dakota planned to fund roughly 110 ambulance grants and got 86 applications. As far as I can tell that is the first RHTP opportunity anywhere that closed undersubscribed against its own award estimate, and it happened on the largest pot the state has put out. The pattern holds from the other direction too: the $300K community gardens money drew 4.5 applicants per award. Demand is thickest where the check is smallest and the eligibility bar is lowest, and thinnest where the money requires a rural ambulance service with the capacity to run a federal grant.

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In this issue

• Idaho posts materials from the Aug. 4 Pediataric Psychiatry Access Line pre-application webinar

• Louisiana posts its Rurality Definition and Methodology and sets a September 3 webinar

• Pennsylvania correct eligible costs in Rapid Response Stabilization Round 2

• Alaska announces its first Rural Health Transformation awards, $4.59 million to 19 projects

• Rural art

Idaho posts Materials from Aug. 4 Pre-application Webinar for Pediatric Psychiatry Access Line

Note Section 2.2, Minimum Qualifications, of the RFP: “Ability to provide or subcontract qualified child and adolescent psychiatric consultants.”

None of the four eligible applicants — Boise State University, Idaho State University, University of Idaho, Lewis-Clark State College — operates a child and adolescent psychiatry training program or carries a CAP faculty bench. This is a classic RHTP subcontract opportunity.

Louisiana posts a Rurality Definition and Methodology and puts the next monthly webinar on September 3

• September 3, 2026 - 9:00 am - 10:00 am

  • Register Here

• August 6, 2026

  • Webinar Slides

• July 2, 2026

  • Webinar Slides

Washington issues Amendment 2 to Rural Hospitals RFA — 2-year term confirmed

Washington issued Amendment No. 2 to the Rural Hospitals (Maternal, Emergency and Specialty Services) RFA on 8/7/2026 — sixteen bidder questions answered, all other terms unchanged. The questions are noticeably more sophisticated than the ones on 2026HCA9, and three answers set boundaries worth knowing before you write a budget.

The term is two periods, and only two. Asked whether sustainability plans should cover the full five-year program through September 30, 2031, HCA said no — “Sustainability strategies should cover the expected term of the agreement, which includes Budget/Performance Periods 1 and 2 only,” and “This RFA award will only allow contract terms for awardees through September 30, 2028. Additional RFAs may be posted in future budget years.”

Also: no advance payments: “Awardees will be paid upon submission of invoices for actual costs… Advanced payment is not allowed under this grant.”

Pennsylvania correct eligible costs in Rapid Response Stabilization Round 2

Pennsylvania DHS swapped the Round 2 Program Request and Eligibility Certification dated July 29 for one dated August 7. We covered the opening of Round 2 on August 1. The state fixed an error in eligible costs:

• July 29 — “through payment for supplies, equipment, renovations, or structural improvements.”

• August 7 — “through payment for supplies and equipment.”

Renovations and structural improvements are out of the eligible-use checkboxes. This now conforms with CMS guidelines

The application window is August 17 at 8:00 a.m. to August 24 at 11:59 a.m., or until the cap is met, whichever is sooner. First come, first served, and DHS reserves the right to raise the cap without moving the dates.

Separately, the FQHC and FQHC Look-Alikes technology payment — $1.8 million, $300,000 each, six awards — closed August 7. The $25 million EHR and HIO payment runs to August 14.

Read more

In this issue:

• New York schedules an August 12 webinar

• North Dakota answers Clinics without Walls: Telehealth Infrastructure questions and rules out bandwidth

• Washington extends three Rural Health Transformation RFA deadlines due to wildfires— but the end of October is unmovable

• New Mexico puts out $22M Rooted in New Mexico Program Administrator RFP

• Washington‘s Rural Collaborative received $5.43M and started running its own RFQs

• Nevada discloses six Rural Health Outcomes Accelerator Program awards to the Pahrump Valley Times

New York schedules an August 12 webinar

Wednesday 8/12 10-11AM: NYS Rural Health Transformation Updates
View the webinar
Webinar number: 2829 999 9223
Webinar password: NYS_RHTP1

New York has been quiet since Rural Community Health Integration. That solicitation’s guidance, application, and two addenda are still stacked on the spartan NY RHT page, and its deadline was extended to July 14, which has passed.

That makes this webinar the state’s first scheduled public statement about what comes after RCHI, and the title is “Updates” rather than a named initiative. Should be interesting.

North Dakota answers Clinics without Walls: Telehealth Infrastructure questions and rules out bandwidth

North Dakota HHS posted an FAQ attached to Clinics without Walls: Telehealth Infrastructure (FO 210-331) — roughly $3.6 million, an estimated 25 awards of about $144,000, applications.

The issue of broadband connectivity continues to come up all across the country in every telehelath offering, and the answer is always the same: not covered under RHTP.

An applicant explained that it does not have the network capacity or bandwidth to support the telehealth services it was proposing, and asked whether Wi-Fi and network upgrades were allowable:

These are unallowable. Please refer to the information on Page 17, which states that equipment upgrades are not allowed.

On Medicaid, two separate applicants asked the same question — what happens if our Medicaid numbers are low — and got the same answer. You may self-report your patient populations and encounter volumes, and priority goes to applicants serving Medicaid patients. Low Medicaid volume is a scoring disadvantage, not a disqualification.

Washington extends three Rural Health Transformation RFA deadlines due to wildfires

In response to the wildfires burning in eastern Washington, Washington’s Rural Health Transformation (RHT) Program has extended the application periods for the following funding opportunities.

All three carry official amendments dated August 6: Amendment 1 to 2026HCA14, Amendment 3 to 2026HCA12, and Amendment 2 to 2026HCA9.

Of course, none of the Work Order execution dates have changed—the end of October 2026 is a hard deadline that nothing can disrupt.

Read more

In this issue

• North Dakota closes School-Based Wellness Equipment with 68 applicants

• Rhode Island schedules an August 13 technical assistance session for its Rural Community Health Networks application

• North Dakota answers the vendors circling Technology as an Extender with a one-word no

• Tennessee holds forth on entity-determination guidance

• Colorado closes its RHTP RFA; award announcements set for September

• North Dakota opens Non-Emergency Medical Transportation Acquisition, $2 million for wheelchair-accessible vans

• Michigan names its RHTP Advisory Council, and tells you not to call them

• Washington issues Amendment 1 to RFA 2026HCA9, and clawbacks are prominent

North Dakota closes School-Based Wellness Equipment with 68 applicants

• Zero-Hour Physical Education Initiative — $700,000, an estimated 10 awards of approximately $70,000, closed May 22. 23 applicants. About 2.3 applications per available award.

• Community Gardens Project — $300,000, an estimated 10 awards of approximately $30,000, closed May 22. 45 applicants. About 4.5 per award.

• School-Based Wellness Equipment — $500,000, an estimated 20 awards of approximately $25,000, closed July 30. 68 applicants. About 3.4 per award.

Rural North Dakota’s appetite for small, non-clinical, community-scale money runs between two and four and a half times what the state budgeted for it. And these are the least glamorous lines in the whole portfolio — gym equipment, garden beds, an extra period of PE before the school day starts.

The state’s larger opportunities close through August — Electronic Medical Record Enhancement at $10 million, Rural Ambulance Modernization at $22 million, Technology as an Extender at $5 million.

Rhode Island schedules an August 13 technical assistance session for its Rural Community Health Networks application

To learn more about this funding opportunity, attend a technical assistance session on Thursday, August 13 at 2 p.m. on Teams.

North Dakota answers the vendors circling Technology as an Extender with a one-word no

North Dakota HHS posted a Technology as an Extender FAQ yesterday.

Three of the questions come from vendors whose product raises a facility’s revenue rather than treating a patient — one describes itself as specializing in locating missing patient insurance information on claims already written off. A fourth asks whether an out-of-state vendor can apply at all. North Dakota’s answer:

No. As stated in the Technology as an Extender Funding Opportunity, the following North Dakota entities are eligible to submit an application: critical access hospitals, rural emergency hospitals, non-federally operated Indian Health Service facilities and tribally run 638 facilities, clinics, federally qualified health centers serving at least 50% North Dakota rural residents or whose grant funding will be used to serve North Dakota rural residents, skilled nursing facilities and basic care facilities.

The applicant is always a North Dakota rural facility. The vendor is never the applicant. Anyone reading that as a rejection has misread it — the buyer is a critical access hospital with $250,000 and a twelve-day clock, and the job is to be in the application, not on it.

Three more interesting answers:

• Assisted living is out, and the state acknowledges the contradiction

• Applying to one opportunity does not block you from another, but you can only sign one agreement

• CMS has not finalized reporting requirements

The two handouts posted alongside the FAQ are accessible companion documents for technical assistance calls that already happened — Technology as an Extender from the July 30 call presented by Bobbie Will, and Childcare for the Rural Workforce from the July 23 call presented by Colette Greek.

Tennessee holds forth on entity-determination guidance

Tennessee’s rural health page got a new frequently asked question yesterday. The question is “Can you define the term ‘entity’ and how this designation is determined for RHTP applicants?”

Answer: The state will no longer rely solely on TIN/EIN status. It will also weigh organizational name, affiliations, operational structure, and other relevant factors, and it tells applicants to rely on this guidance when preparing and submitting applications.

Same policy Tennessee issued June 16, inside Amendment 2 to the Maternal/Infant and Child Health Healthcare Resiliency Program procurement, which went out by email to that one solicitation’s list. What changed is reach. It is now general guidance across every Tennessee RHTP opportunity, visible to organizations that were never on that distribution list.

The timing is awkward. Health Technology and Innovation and Make Rural Tennessee Healthy Again (MaRTHA) both closed August 3. Rural Fetal and Infant Wellness closes today. Five RFPs remain open through General Services:

Five Tennessee RHTP RFPs remain open through General Services, and the entity question shapes how each of them can be bid:

• Provider-to-Provider Electronic Consultation (e-Consult) Services, RFP 34320-19927, due August 14

• Pregnancy and Postpartum Mobile Device Education Application, RFP 34320-19527, due August 14

• Community Health Access and Navigation Call Center, RFP 34320-19126, due August 24

• RHTP Marketing and Advertising Services, RFP 34320-21227, due August 26

• Healthcare Management Consulting Services, RFP 34320-20827, due September 3

Colorado closes its RHTP RFA; award announcements set for September

The RHTP team anticipates making our award announcements by the end of September 2026.

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• New Hampshire: GO-NORTH HUB Foundation for Healthy Communities (FHC) hosts School Based Oral Health Informational Session

• North Dakota posts an FAQ for its $22 million Rural Ambulance Modernization opportunity: Remounts welcome

• Maryland fileds questions for its Pathways to Health Careers and RISE workforce RFAs: five-year service commitment clawback is rough

• Maine picks 11 rural hospitals to share $30 million from its Rural Hospital Efficiency Fund for planning

• West Virginia doubles the ceiling on its Design and Administer Statewide, Multi-Payer Payment Models AFA to $5 million

• Kansas opens the Dementia-Related Behavioral Supports in Rural Nursing Facilities Pilot RFA

• Ohio RHT Deep Dive: Systemic Integration Over Cash Injection

New Hampshire: GO-NORTH HUB Foundation for Healthy Communities (FHC) hosts School Based Oral Health Informational Session

The Foundation for Healthy Communities GO-NORTH School-Based Oral Health Information Session on Monday, August 24th from 10:30 AM - 11:30 AM, REGISTER HERE. Learn more about the eligibility criteria, award requirements, and receive guidance about this Request for Application that supports expanding access to preventative oral health services in rural areas through investments in School-Based Oral Health programs, including expansion of existing programs, starting new programs, and the adoption of electronic dental records systems to support the long-term sustainability of School-Based Oral Health programs throughout New Hampshire. For any questions, reach out to RHTP-FHC@healthynh.org.

Maryland fileds questions for its Pathways to Health Careers and RISE workforce RFAs: five-year service commitment clawback is rough

Maryland’s Department of Labor published a public Q&A for the two RHTP workforce solicitations it runs out of its Division of Workforce Development and Adult Learning — Pathways to Health Careers and Rural Incentives for Strengthening Employment in Healthcare (RISE), both released July 10 — ahead of an August 9 application deadline that closes at 11:59 p.m.

There are more than a hundred questions, spread across general mechanics, allowable uses, the service commitment, and each program. And the questions come from everywhere — training providers, out-of-state education partners, small healthcare-training businesses, universities, worker-owned cooperatives, even vendors building AI telehealth simulations. New organizations are eligible with no operating-history requirement, training providers can lead, there’s no minimum number of trainees, and a private practice can be both lead applicant and the employing rural provider. This is a wide-open, non-insider field, and the volume of eligibility probing is the proof.

The five-year rural service commitment, and the clawback behind it, was the source of a lot of questions. Any participant who receives direct financial support or training that leads to a credential in a clinical occupation must sign a contract committing to five years of work in a wholly-rural Maryland jurisdiction, and if they don’t finish it, the grantee has to return funds to the state on a pro-rated basis. The grantee owns the tracking for all five years — collecting names and contact information, monitoring fulfillment, chasing a participant who moves out of state at year three — even though the money itself is a one-year grant.

MD Labor was asked directly whether it would help track participants by social security number and said no; it also said it does not anticipate awards that fund the tracking past a single year, so applicants should build one budget year of tracking cost and absorb the rest. There is no age exemption, either: a high-school student who earns a CNA credential on RHTP funds triggers the commitment, though CMS recommends states avoid pushing direct licensure incentives at the high-school level in the first place. Non-clinical roles — community health workers, certified peer recovery specialists, direct support professionals, healthcare administrative and IT roles — are generally exempt.

Two answers point straight at the vendors and technology firms in this newsletter’s audience. MD Labor was asked whether recurring technology-platform costs for participant tracking, LMS-based training delivery, and care coordination count as administrative overhead against that 10% cap, and it said no — those are direct program costs when they support patient-facing care coordination, participant tracking, or clinical and LMS training. It was also asked whether building AI-supported telehealth training and simulation agents would be disallowed as prohibited research and development, and it said no — that’s allowable training infrastructure as long as it’s deployed for immediate workforce education rather than academic experimentation. That a state procurement Q&A is now fielding and clearing AI-simulation questions is its own signal. And for vendors who haven’t been pulled into a hospital’s application yet, there’s a concrete door: the Maryland Department of Health has stood up a Maryland Rural Health Vendor Directory, and firms can request a listing through a public form so applicants can find them.

The takeaway for anyone weighing a bid is that Maryland is offering one year of money against a five-year, clawback-backed obligation that the grantee has to administer on its own dime after the grant closes. That reshapes the question from “can we run the program” to “can we carry the tracking liability” — and in a field this wide, the applicants who price that honestly are the ones who should win.

North Dakota posts an FAQ for its $22 million Rural Ambulance Modernization opportunity: Remounts welcome

North Dakota HHS posted a Frequently Asked Questions document on August 3 for its Rural Ambulance Modernization opportunity — the roughly $22 million, 110-award ambulance line inside the $50.5 million wave the state announced in late July, with applications closing August 9. It’s a short document, but it draws lines sharp enough to change who should bother applying and what they can spend the money on.

The first line is eligibility. This is a ground-ambulance program, full stop: eligible applicants are licensed North Dakota ground ambulance service providers and ambulance districts, and the FAQ explicitly rules out air ambulance and quick-response units. City, county, and ambulance-district applicants do not need to register with the Secretary of State, and where a hospital or district contracts out the service, the applicant should be the legal entity actually responsible for delivering care — funds flow to that applicant, not to the ambulance tax district, and the application should use the service provider’s data.

The second line is what the money buys, and it’s the one vendors need to read twice. You cannot buy a new ambulance with this funding. The FAQ states plainly that the purchase of a new ambulance or other vehicle is not allowable — the money is to modernize existing rigs through eligible equipment. Radios are in (SIRN-capable, and either handheld or rig-mounted qualifies, as long as the application describes the type and how it supports the modernization plan), but for any equipment item of $10,000 or more, applicants have to complete a lease-versus-purchase comparison. And there’s a hard delivery cliff: all equipment must be fully delivered, and all funds expended, by August 31, 2027. On a grant that pays by reimbursement, a vendor with a long lead time on radios or a power-load system is a real schedule risk, not a footnote.

The third line is the one worth flagging for anyone who thinks of an equipment grant as strings-free: the five-year service commitment reaches even volunteer ambulance services. North Dakota is attaching a multi-year obligation to continue providing rural ambulance service to what is, on its face, a hardware purchase — so the real ask is a five-year operating commitment backed by state money for the gear, not a one-time equipment giveaway. For aftermarket ambulance-equipment vendors who can actually deliver inside the window, the buyers are named and the list is long; for anyone hoping to sell a chassis, this door was never open.

Maine picks 11 rural hospitals to share $30 million from its Rural Hospital Efficiency Fund for planning

Maine DHHS, working with the state’s Office of Affordable Health Care, selected 11 rural hospitals to share $30 million in Rural Health Transformation Program funds aimed squarely at their balance sheets. The award, announced July 31, runs under the state’s Sustainable Rural Health Ecosystems initiative and its Rural Hospital Efficiency Fund, and the point of it is financial survival: the money pays for technical assistance and strategy development to help these hospitals improve long-term efficiency, stability, and sustainability, not for buildings or equipment.

The eleven are Cary Medical Center, MaineHealth Franklin Hospital, Houlton Regional Hospital, MaineGeneral Medical Center’s Alfond Center for Health, Millinocket Regional Hospital, Mount Desert Island Hospital, Northern Light A.R. Gould Hospital, Northern Light C.A. Dean Hospital, Northern Maine Medical Center, MaineHealth Pen Bay Hospital, and Penobscot Valley Hospital.

Selected hospitals must submit their sustainability plans to the state by January, and the resulting projects must be implemented by the following August. In other words, Maine is paying its most financially fragile rural hospitals to first figure out how to stay solvent, then execute.

That framing sits against the backdrop the program was built for: the RHTP is distributing $50 billion to states over five years, positioned as a partial offset to the roughly $137 billion in projected rural Medicaid cuts under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act.

Eleven hospitals now have until January to produce credible financial-turnaround and sustainability plans, and hospitals in this position rarely have the internal capacity to write them alone. That is a concentrated, dated market for financial and operational turnaround advisors, service-line and rightsizing consultants, and the kind of firm that can take a struggling rural hospital from diagnosis to an implementable plan in under six months.

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• Wyoming closes the application window on its first Rural Health Transformation Program RFA round

• New Hampshire authorizes a $2 million GO-NORTH planning-grant pool to make rural organizations application-ready

• Iowa Deep Dive: The First State to Award Is Now the First to Force a Choice

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In this issue

• North Dakota closes its Self-Serve Dispensing Kiosks in Pharmacies funding opportunity

• Georgia posts a Notice of Intent to Award, $26M to 13 rural hospitals

• Idaho names Co-Imagine Health as awardee for its Maternal and Child Health Initiatives

• Pennsylvania opens Rapid Response Stabilization Round 2, a $35M payment

• California opens its full first CalRHT wave, four programs now taking applications

• Tennessee posts five RHTP RFPs and opens competitive grants

• Wisconsin issues a Community Health Workers Training Providers RFA

North Dakota closes its Self-Serve Dispensing Kiosks in Pharmacies funding opportunity (210-441)

North Dakota flipped the listing for its Self-Serve Dispensing Kiosks in Pharmacies funding opportunity (210-441) from “Apply Now” to “Closed” on July 31, ending the application window. It is the latest of the discrete, single-purpose equipment and infrastructure opportunities the state has been running one at a time all summer — kiosks, mobile mammography, rural ambulance modernization, telehealth and remote-patient-monitoring builds — rather than bundling them into a few large competitions. The pattern is worth watching on its own: North Dakota is metering its allocation out in narrow, fast-closing tranches, which rewards applicants who are already watching the funding page daily.

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