Rural Healthcare Provider Transition Project (RHPTP)

Rhonda Barcus
rbarcus@ruralcenter.org

The Rural Healthcare Provider Transition Project (RHPTP) provides technical assistance and training for rural healthcare providers to build capacity in value-based care (VBC), with emphasis on efficiency, quality, patient experience, and safety. The program's goal is to guide small rural hospitals and rural health clinics that are not currently participating in VBC to prepare for participation in a health system focused on value.

Five hospitals and clinics will be selected to receive focused, focused onsite or virtual technical assistance (TA) to help leaders and providers transition to value-based care (VBC) and prepare for population health management. Services include:

• In-depth comprehensive consultations and coaching with subject matter experts (SME) to support hospitals/clinics with the implementation of best practices and adoption of transition to value-based care strategies to prepare the organization for alternative payment models (APM). These consultations may target clinical areas of efficiency, quality, patient experience, and safety of care.
• In-depth comprehensive consultation with SME to assess organization's readiness for assuming financial risk
• Peer-to-peer education and sharing through learning collaboratives to support project implementation and sustainability
• Health Education Learning Program (HELP) webinar series on a variety of Advanced Payment Models, and/or Value-based Care topics
• Post-project Recommendation Adoption Progress (RAP) calls to document progress and successes, and to provide support for project implementation

Twenty hospitals/clinics will be selected to receive virtual TA support through participation in a Health Equity Learning Collaborative to assist organizations in preparing for VBC.

All RHPTP-eligible organizations are eligible to participate in the HELP webinar series on a variety of Advanced Payment Models, and/or Value-based Care topics.

Eligibility requirements include:

• Eligible small rural hospital, defined as a non-federal, short-term general acute care hospital that: (1) Is located in a rural area as defined in 42 U.S.C. 1395ww(d) and (2) Has 49 available beds or less, as reported on the hospital's most recently filed Medicare Cost Report
• Located in a rural area, defined as either: (1) Located outside of a Metropolitan Statistical Area (MSA); (2) Located within a rural census tract of a MSA, as determined under the Goldsmith Modification or the Rural Urban Commuting Areas (RUCAs); or (3) Is being treated as if being located in a rural area pursuant to 42 U.S.C. 1395(d)(8)(E)
• Eligible hospitals may be for-profit or nonprofit, including faith-based. Hospitals in U.S. territories as well as tribally operated hospitals are eligible to the extent that such hospitals meet the above criteria.

In addition, applicant organizations must:

• Not be currently participating in an Advanced Alternative Payment Model (APM), as defined by CMS, or the Community Health Access and Rural Transformation (CHART) Model
• Be financially stable
• Be interested and motivated to become part of an APM
• If required, be meeting quality data reporting requirements of Inpatient Quality Reporting (IQR), Outpatient Quality Reporting (OQR), or Medicare Beneficiary Quality Improvement Project (MBQIP)
• Not be a current participant in the Delta Region Community Health Systems Development (DRCHSD) Program, Vulnerable Rural Hospital Project, the Small Rural Hospital Transition (SRHT) Project or any program that is duplicative in services

Specific benefits of participation are listed on the program website.

• 5 organizations will be selected for no cost intensive technical assistance.
• 20 organizations will be selected to receive no-cost support through participation in a virtual Health Equity Learning Collaborative.
• The project period will begin in January, 2024.

A link to the online application is available on the program website.

Application assistance:

• Program video
• Eligibility and application process
• Frequently asked questions