When Congress enacted its FY 2025 budget reconciliation bill – the so-called “One Big Beautiful Bill” – it recognized that the Medicaid cuts in that legislation could have a damaging effect on some health care providers and the communities they serve and created a five-year, $50 billion “Rural Health Transformation Program” designed to help protect rural hospitals from some of the damage those cuts are expected to cause.
Now, federal regulators are working to bring that program to life.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which will administer the program, has created a web site for the program. That web site outlines the program’s goals and structure, describes how any funding awarded through the program must be spent, and outlines the application process.
It also presents a general timeline for the program to unfold: applications for states to seek funding – only the 50 states will be eligible to apply – are expected to go out sometime in mid-September and will be due in early November, with CMS tentatively planning to make its funding decisions by the end of the year.
CMS will distribute half of the $50 billion through this process; the other half will be awarded at the discretion of the CMS administrator.
Learn more about the Rural Health Transformation Program from its web page and this video of an August 25 webinar the agency held to share information about the program; a transcript of that webinar can be found alongside the video.