Note: as awards continue to get published (as in Alabama, below) we are tracking each and every one of them. We collect contact information for all awardeess and are able to connect the threads from CMS —> State —> subrecipient —> vendor. See RHTP Verified Intelligence for 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.
