Note: we’re tracking Annual Reports as they are published. To get a deeper view of the data, book a call or sign up for RHTP Verified Intelligence
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.
