Rural Health Transformation: State Grants

Have you heard about the CMS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services passage of the landmark CMS $50 Billion Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) under the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (OBBBA)? This is the moment to secure transformative funding, but only if your hospital's needs are written into your state’s grant  application.

Visit https://www.cms.gov/priorities/rural-health-transformation-rht-program/overview 

At PDi Communication Systems, Inc, we know how hard rural hospital teams work to deliver quality care with limited resources. We support you in improving outcomes through practical, digital solutions. That’s why we’re bringing this to your attention now. Our mission is "to improve patient care and outcomes with enhanced digital communications technology".  Thus, we wish to share this grant opportunity to help ensure rural America benefits from the latest in innovative care and technology. 

Critical Action Required: Influence Your State Plan

Your state's plan is currently being shaped. With a deadline of Nov 5, 2025, you only have a limited time to make sure your hospitals needs are included in the grant application. 

RHTP funding is specifically designed to help rural hospitals build long-term capacity and modernize care delivery, not just patch short-term problems. We urge you to ensure that this $50B investment results in permanent technological improvements, not temporary fixes.

The deadline for state application submissions is November 5, 2025.

The RHTP: A Critical Window for Innovation (2026-2030)

The RHTP is funded at $10 Billion annually and provides a five-year opportunity (2026-2030) to modernize your hospital system. Crucially, funds are awarded to states only after their plans for strengthening rural healthcare are approved. ACT NOW!

Uses of Funds 

States must use RHT Program funds for 3 or more of these approved uses:

1. Promoting evidence-based, measurable interventions to improve prevention and chronic disease management.
2. Providing payments to health care providers for the provision of health care items or services, as specified by the Administrator.
3. Promoting consumer-facing, technology-driven solutions for the prevention and management of chronic diseases.
4. Providing training and technical assistance for the development and adoption of technology-enabled solutions that improve care delivery in rural hospitals, including remote monitoring, robotics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies.
5. Recruiting and retaining clinical workforce talent to rural areas, with commitments to serve rural communities for a minimum of 5 years.
6. Providing technical assistance, software, and hardware for significant information technology advances designed to improve efficiency, enhance cybersecurity capability development, and improve patient health outcomes.
7. Assisting rural communities to right size their health care delivery systems by identifying needed preventative, ambulatory, pre-hospital, emergency, acute inpatient care, outpatient care, and post-acute care service lines.
8. Supporting access to opioid use disorder treatment services (as defined in section 1861(jjj)(1)), other substance use disorder treatment services, and mental health services.
9. Developing projects that support innovative models of care that include value-based care arrangements and alternative payment models, as appropriate.
10. Additional uses designed to promote sustainable access to high quality rural health care services, as determined by the Administrator.

Beyond a Grant: Plan for Sustainability

As you know, the OBBBA includes permanent structural changes to federal healthcare policy. Analysts warn that permanent cuts to Medicaid are not adequately offset by the temporary RHTP funding. We must treat this funding as an accelerator to build sustainable, efficient, and technology-driven models of care that can thrive post-2030, when the RHTP funding concludes.

While the RHTP offers significant short-term funding, it comes alongside permanent changes to federal healthcare policy, including Medicaid cuts. That’s why it’s essential that these dollars are used to build sustainable, tech-enabled care models that can continue after the program ends in 2030.

To help you ensure your state plan is forward-looking, at PDi, we focus on technology solutions to improve care delivery:

• Cloud-Based EHR Adoption & Interoperability: Dedicated funding to subsidize access to and migration toward advanced, cloud-based Electronic Health Record (EHR) services. This initiative specifically targets independent medical groups, allowing them to leverage high-end systems, such as Epic Garden Plot, without the burden of running costly, on-premise infrastructure. This ensures built-in interoperability and digital health tools are available to help smaller groups deliver efficient, patient-centered care.

If we can help you improve efficiency with cloud-based EHR, virtual nursing, or telehealth initiatives to improve patient care and outcomes, please reach out.