The state of Florida will distribute $188 million across 80 awards to support rural healthcare, providing critical funding for better services and workforce development in underserved regions.
The funding will be delivered through the Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) – a federal-state initiative targeting rural areas that historically lack widespread support and consideration.
Florida has already received $209 million from the federal government for associated projects, including strengthening rural healthcare systems, modernizing infrastructure, expanding access to services and bolstering the healthcare workforce. This signals the first year of the state’s five-year plan to invest more than $1 billion in rural healthcare infrastructure and service.
The awards were spread across four regions:
- Northwest Region – 35 awardees totaling $81 million.
- Northeast Region – 14 awardees totaling $51 million.
- Southwest Region – 21 awardees totaling $45 million.
- Southeast Region – 11 awardees totaling $12 million.
This round of funding fulfils the state’s scope of RHTP support for qualified organizations and initiatives across the state.
When the state announced the Requests for Applications (RFAs) earlier this year, applicants had the chance to apply for funding spread across six distinct topic areas. The first year of funding will cover between Aug. 1, 2026, through July 30, 2027. The following is a rundown of each topic area the RHTP provided awards for:
The Specialty and Acute Care Bundle has a maximum funding budget of $69.6 million to help expand specialty and acute care capacity through technology and telehealth integration and deployment. Outside of the area’s required core components for diagnostics technology support and Florida Health Information Exchange (HIE)/Event Notification System (ENS) onboarding, qualifying initiatives for the program included:
- Behavioral health telehealth and telehub psychiatry.
- Tele-imaging and virtual specialty clinics.
- Tele-ICU.
- Telestroke (hub-and-spoke).
The $60.5 million Preventative Care and Care-at-Home Bundle targeted five key components to create a coordinated system of community-based and in-home care. These included:
- Mobile health units.
- Community paramedicine and mobile integrated health.
- Remote patient telemonitoring.
- On-site pharmacy and retail clinics.
- Florida HIE/ENS onboarding.
The Rural and Satellite Clinics topic area focused on providing up to $25 million to establish rural clinics and satellite sites across the state’s rural areas. Recipients chosen for these awards may use them to advance operations, develop their workforce, integrate health information system technology and improve facilities.
Workforce Development efforts could claim up to $12.6 million to address critical worker shortages through two distinct pathways. Pathway 1 prioritized expanding clinical training pipelines. Pathway 2 sought to build long-term workforce pipelines through Career and Technical Education, dual enrollment and partnerships between educational institutions and rural providers.
The Health and Lifestyle: Nutrition and Prevention topic area offered $10.1 million to address food insecurity and preventable chronic diseases in vulnerable, rural communities. Recipients would use their awards to support critical interventions designed to enhance nutrition and support long-term positive health outcomes.
Efforts to promote Value-Based Purchasing revolved around moving from fee-for-service models to value-based care alternatives. Projects must focus on infrastructure development, including:
- Contracting and financial modeling capabilities.
- Population health and analytics platforms.
- Care coordination staffing and systems.
- Interoperability and HIE integration.
Some of the recipients that received the largest awards through the most recent RHTP funding round include:
- CommunityHealth IT – $43.7 million through Preventative Care and Care-at-Home awards.
- Florida State University – $18.1 million through Preventative Care and Care-at-Home, Specialty and Acute Care and Health and Lifestyle awards.
- Escambia Community Clinics (Community Health Northwest Florida) – $16.1 million through Preventative Care and Care-at-Home, Specialty and Acute Care, Value-Based Care, Rural and Satellite Clinics, Workforce Development and Health and Lifestyle awards.
- Calhoun-Liberty Hospital – $11.2 million through Specialty and Acute Care awards.
- Medlink Management Services (Lake Butler Hospital) – $7 million through Preventative Care and Care-at-Home and Value-Based Care awards.
Photo by RDNE Stock Project from Pexels
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