Looking Ahead: FY 2026 Federal Office of Rural Health Policy Preview Webinar

Featured Speakers

• Tom Morris, FORHP Associate Administrator
• Rachel Moscato, Hospital State Division Director
• Jillian Causey, Rural Strategic Initiatives Division Deputy Director
• Kathryn Umali, Community Based Division Director
• Kerri Cornejo, Policy Research Division Acting Director

The Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) invites stakeholders, partners, and rural health leaders to join the 2026 FORHP Preview Webinar. Participants will learn how FORHP is supporting innovative, locally driven solutions to improve access, quality, and sustainability of healthcare in rural communities. To assist communities in their planning efforts, the webinar will outline FORHP's priorities, planned competitive community-based funding opportunities, resources, and opportunities for collaboration aimed at advancing rural health transformation.

From This Webinar

• PowerPoint Handout
• Listen to or download an audio version [MP3]

Transcript

Kristine Sande: Hello everyone. I'm Kristine Sande, director of the Rural Health Information Hub, and I'd like to welcome you to today's webinar. We are delighted to be hosting speakers from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy for their FY 2026 FORHP Investments Preview. And with that, I will turn it over to Tom Morris from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. Tom.

Tom Morris: Great, Kristine, thank you so much and I'm just really happy to be able to be part of this today. I appreciate you all at RHIhub hosting us and what we hope today to do is to give folks a sense of our competitive funding for the coming year. We realized that with the government shutdown and also with the late passage of the budget, that our timelines are a bit compressed. And so, the intent today is to provide folks with a sense of which programs we're going to be competing this year and how you might be able to get ready while we work on getting those, what we call notices of funding opportunity or NOFAs, basically a grant application. While we worked to get those through our clearance process and out, we wanted to make sure that we could give people as much information as we could so that they could start thinking about which programs they might want to apply for now.

So today I'm really happy to be joined by a great team of folks that I have the pleasure of working with. You're going to hear from Kerri Cornejo, who's the Acting Director of our Policy and Research Division. She'll be followed by Jillian Causey, who is the Deputy Director in our Rural Strategic Initiatives division, where we run our Rural Community Opioids Response program. Then we'll hear from Kathryn Umali, who is the Director of our Community-based Division, and then closing out will be Rachel Moscato who is the Director of our Hospital State Division, and I want to thank all of them in advance for being willing to do this.

So, a little bit, just to give you a context, if you don't know who we are or what we do, we work at the Health Resources and Services Administration. You may know our agency, but I'll bet you know our programs, whether it's the programs in FORHP or programs like the community health centers or the Ryan White HIV/AIDS programs, Maternal and Child Health Block grant, Bureau of Health Workforce, all of those programs are located in HRSA. And the one common link we have across the agency is that if you look at the through line, it really is all of our programs are about focusing on underserved populations and improving access to care.

So, a little bit about the office, we have a unique role in HHS in the sense that while we're located in HRSA, we're charged with actually advising the secretary and the HHS leadership on rural health issues, whether that's about rural hospitals or about workforce or access to care. It's our job to pay attention to those things. But in addition to that policy role where we review a lot of the regulations that come through HHS with an eye towards how they affect rural communities, we also administer a range of grant programs at both the state and the community level. And I think the one common link in all of those programs is there about capacity building, and you'll hear about a couple of those today.

The third role we have is just working across government to help anybody who wants to work on rural health, help them achieve their goals. So, we'd like to be a resource for all of our federal partners as well. As many of you know, the big priority for HHS this year is about making America healthy again. As you look at the range of issues that the department leadership has laid out for us to focus on, you can see many that are very familiar to anybody that's worked in rural health for any degree of time, whether it's disease prevention, managing chronic disease, focusing on nutrition, expanding primary care, helping hospitals and clinics make that transition to value-based care, or focusing on mental health. Those are all things that I think would resonate with anybody that's working in rural health, and that'll be our piece of really advancing this agenda over the coming year.

We're also working to collaborate the best we can with our colleagues at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services as they roll out one of the most ambitious rural health programs we've seen in a lifetime, and that is the Rural Health Transformation Program. And so, we want to support them in any way we can. Those investments will be coming down the line over the next coming five years. Hopefully everybody that's on this call is aware of this and engaging with their state because it's going to be a fantastic opportunity moving forward. But at the same time, there are other needs that our programs can meet as well, and I see these as very complementary both what CMS is going to be able to do around systems change, whereas our program are really focusing on the nuts and bolts of creating new programs and improving access in rural communities.

So, I mentioned that we had a late passage of the budget, but we were very happy to see what happened when it finally did pass in the sense that we saw about $53 million in increases in our budget. So, all of our program lines were either level funded or in some cases had nice increases. And so that was really welcome news. We also have a new program called the Rural Hospital Support Program, which we'll be sharing more information on in the coming weeks.

But today's webinar is really about potential applicants for our competitive funding this year. Again, realizing that we're going to have really tight timelines. We wanted to do anything we could to help folks understand what's going to be competitive this year, figure out if it's the right program for you, point you in a couple of directions that might help you prepare for those programs once they're released.

And so, with today's webinar, we want to really accomplish several things. We want to walk through each of our six competitive community-based funding notices. Again, these are the applications. We want to let you know what initial steps you can take to be signed into the right resources. So for example, you want to sign up with Grants.gov and there are several other registrations that anybody applying for a federal grant would need to fill out. And so, there's no reason to wait on any of that. It doesn't commit you to anything. So, we'll have some discussion at the tail end of the webinar about how you can sign up for those things because there'll be one less thing to worry about once our funding notices come out when you really want to hit the ground running. And then third, we want to point you to any resources we think that can help you as you prepare for the competition.

So, we want to give you information that can get you to start thinking about what you might be able to do as you apply for our funding. And that includes looking at past funding notices that are still available from prior years that are available online, but we also have a variety of what we call source books or grantee directories that are on the website at RHIhub. That might also be a resource as well.

Now, some of our programs have not changed a whole lot, so if you go back and look at say, an opioid funding from a couple of years ago or a year ago, it's not going to change a whole lot moving forward. And that could be an advantage in terms of you could look at that funding notice and really get a sense of how to get started. But there are some cases where we have made changes to a program and we'll want to make sure you understand what those changes are and why we made them. And then in one case, we actually have a brand new program that's in the Delta region that Rachel will share more information about as well.

So, in terms of other FORHP programs that are not necessarily going to be discussed today, our current plan is to fund new awards from last year's applicant pool where we had many more high scoring applications than we're actually able to fund with last year's resources. So for example, in our network planning program in the Rural Maternal Obstetrics Management Strategies program or what we call RMOMS with the overdose response program and the Delta Systems Implementation program, we were really blown away by the quality applications we got last year and we funded as many as we could, but the fact is there are many high scoring, high quality applications that we can fund with this year and really reward those folks who put all the effort into putting in an application last year.

So more to come on that our plan is to basically go down the rank order, that's the scoring list for each program and just fund those programs with the funding we have available this year.

Before we dive into the six competitive programs, I do want to know one area where you're going to see significant changes, and this has to do with our program around rural health network development. Last year we held several listening sessions to learn more about the current state of rural health networks. And in the course of those discussions, we learned that rural health networks are really becoming an essential support mechanism for independently owned rural hospitals and rural clinics. They're able to get economies of scale and provide service to their members almost as if they were in a system, but still allowing them to maintain their autonomy over how that hospital or clinic operates. And so, there's some really great things going on with networks, but they still need financial help in getting there.

And so, while we've always had a requirement of our network development program that talked about funding existing networks, this year we're putting some particular requirements in there about what folks will be able to do to demonstrate that there actually are a formal and operating rural health networks. What I mean by this, in other words, is that the program is much more tightly focused on helping existing operational networks, networks that are already in place get from one stage in their development to the next stage in supporting their hospitals and clinics. Applicants will have to submit information that shows that they have an existing and operational network. And so for folks at this stage, if you are an existing network, this program might be a great opportunity for you. However, if you're in a situation where you'd like to form a rural health network, but you're not quite there yet, you're not quite operational, well, this is probably not the program for you, but the Rural Health Network Planning program that we offer every year is an opportunity to do that sort of work. And so the next time we'll offer the network planning grants is in 2027.

Now as I wrap up, I'll note that we're going to be covering several programs in a very short period of time today, and you may have more questions about, well, the programs we're talking about and some of the other programs that are in our portfolio. So please feel free to follow up with any specific questions to the emails that are embedded into the slide where all of my colleagues at FORHP are listed. So you can click on those slides and get an email and send a question to us directly so that we can hopefully answer any questions you have both about the six programs we're going to be talking about today, but more broadly about any other funding that you may be curious about for the coming year. So with that, I'm happy to hand off to Kerri Cornejo, the Acting Director of our Policy Research Division.

Kerri Cornejo: Thank you, Tom. As Tom said, I'm Kerri Cornejo. I'm the Acting Director of Forbes Policy Research Division, and my division's upcoming funding opportunity is the Rural Residency and Planning and Development program or RRPD for short. Just to give you a little bit of background, the goals of RRPD are to expand the number of rural residency programs, training new physicians to increase the number of physicians training in rural settings, and ultimately to increase the number of physicians practicing in rural areas. And since we started the program in 2019, RRPD has created 62 new accredited rural residency programs with 752 approved resident positions. RRPD does this by providing up to $750,000 in funding per grant to create new rural residency training programs over a three-year period. And this year we anticipate funding at least 14 new awards. These awards will support startup costs to create new rural residency programs. This also includes rural track programs.

Rural residency programs, by that we mean accredited physician residencies that conduct over 50% of training at rural sites. And for rural track programs, they train residents in both urban and rural areas with more than half of the training at rural sites.

Now, residency programs established through RRPD must be sustainable. Sustainability means having a source of stable long-term funding such as Medicare graduate medical education, and this is an important feature of the program. The program continues to focus on developing rural residency programs and specific areas including family medicine, family medicine with enhanced obstetrical training, internal medicine, preventive medicine, psychiatry, general surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology.

With respect to this year's specific notice of funding opportunity, we expect the FY 2026 NOFO to publish as early as mid-March. Because we do anticipate a shorter application window this year, no longer than 60 days, no shorter than 30, we strongly encourage you to look at previous NOFOs. You can actually get started now using last year's NOFOs since nothing significant has changed year to year. Our previous NOFOs are available online at Grants.gov and there is a link to last year's NOFO at the end of this presentation.

We also have resources available to help you with your application. First, you can reach out to our team here by emailing us directly at ruralresidency@hrsa.gov. We also fund resources through RuralGME.org. This is the website for our RRPD technical assistance provider. These resources are free through the RuralGME.org's website portal, and you can register for an account to access the portal by clicking create account. There's a create account button on their getting started page.

And within the portal you'll find a number of resources, this includes a roadmap to residency development. This will help you better understand the process of residency development. There are written resources and webinars on a variety of topics such as accreditation and Medicare payment, and there's also a hospital analyzer tool to help you understand your ability to host or participate in new residency programs. And if you have any questions about the portal or these resources, you can also always reach out to info@RuralGME.org.

And just to wrap things up briefly, we're really excited about the continued development of rural residency programs and the opportunity to strengthen the rural physician workforce through RRPD. And with that, I'll turn the presentation over to Jillian, who is the Deputy of our Rural Strategic Initiatives Division.

Jillian Causey: Thanks, Kerri. Hi everyone. My name is Jillian Causey, and as Kerri said, I serve as the Deputy Director in the Rural Strategic Initiatives Division, and I'm excited to share with you our two upcoming rural communities opioid response or RCORP funding opportunities. First, we have the RCORP Planning Program. This program provides rural communities with initial seed funding to develop the partnerships and plans necessary to address the impacts of opioid misuse and related substance use disorders. This entry-level program allows smaller under-resourced organizations or those with less federal grant experience to build the necessary infrastructure, particularly when larger federal grants may be too complex to access. Funding can serve as a critical first step to creating SUD service systems that make care easy to access, strengthen the behavioral health workforce, respond to the specific needs of each community, gain strong community buy-in, and create sustainable prevention, treatment, recovery, and other supportive services.

As this is a planning program, grant funds may only be used for planning and preparation activities and do not support direct service delivery. RCORP Planning Award recipients will receive $100,000 each year, and we anticipate making 40 awards. For those who may be familiar with previous iterations of the RCORP planning program, the biggest change this cycle is that the program is now two years rather than one year and/or 18 months.

While we anticipate this funding opportunity to be published in the next few weeks, I encourage you to review the most recently funded fiscal year 2020 RCORP Planning NOFO, which is linked towards the end of today's presentation to prepare your application as program goals expected outcomes and requirements for submission remain similar.

Next up, we have the RCORP Impact program. This program provides funding to rural communities to improve access to integrated, coordinated and sustainable services for substance use disorder and opioid use disorder. To improve access, funding will support new or expanded evidence-based SUD prevention, treatment and recovery services coordinating across health and supportive social services to enable sustained long-term recovery.

Award recipients will be expected to build a larger, more responsive workforce to address SUD-related needs and establish multi-sector community networks to strengthen and sustain local service delivery. Ultimately, funded projects should encompass the comprehensive approaches necessary to provide the full continuum of SUD and OUD care that will help communities fully launch services while strengthening and sustaining SUD systems, leading to measurable in the number of people receiving SUD services. RCORP impact award recipients will receive 750,000 each year for the four-year period of performance, and we anticipate making up to 80 awards.

There are three major changes to this program iteration gathered from lessons learned and administering the Fiscal year 2024 cohort. First, the building of strong networks is further emphasized, focusing on financial planning and long-term sustainability from the beginning. Secondly, SUD prevention activities are now required and should complement new or expanded treatment and recovery services. The previous iteration of this program allowed but did not require SUD prevention activities. And then finally, this funding opportunity includes a funding priority for new recipients or those serving new areas to align with HRSA's priority to reach more rural communities.

Once again, the most recent, our core impact NOFO from Fiscal year 2024 is also linked towards the end of today's presentation. And I would encourage you to review because again, program objectives and outcomes remain similar. I'll now turn it over to Kathryn to highlight our next batch of upcoming funding opportunities.

Kathryn Umali: Hi everyone. My name's Kathryn Umali and I'm the Division Director of the Community-Based division here in the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, and I'll be talking about rural communities and network programs in our office.

So, this year we created a new program that targets established and advanced networks. What we mean by that, as what Tom mentioned, is that networks that are already operational and have systems and infrastructure in place as there will be more rigorous requirements from eligible applicants. These requirements are financial documentation and network governance and much more, just to give you all a sense of how rigorous these requirements could be.

This new program is called the Rural Health Network Advancement Program, and it is focused on supporting existing networks already in operation and helping them evolve to the next logical step in their development. And designed as a pilot program that the Rural Health Network Advancement Program aims to provide startup funding to support existing rural health networks to expand and evolve their efforts to meet the growing needs of their member hospitals and clinics. And the goal eventually is to support the implementation of strategies that advance clinical services and service lines to expand and evolve their efforts to meet the growing needs of rural healthcare. And by doing all of this, the hope is to enhance network operations and financial viability in a structure that allows networks to maintain local autonomy and responsiveness to community needs. And hopefully at the end of this grant, it will serve as a catalyst for measurable advancement and how these funds will achieve meaningful progress in network integration, service delivery, and financial sustainability. This is a four-year program and we expect to make two awards for 500,000 each award per year. And we expect this notice of funding opportunity hopefully to be out in April.

And for those who are not at this level of readiness, we have other network focus programs as what Tom mentioned earlier, for those wanting to start and plan for a network. We have the network planning program, and this is really entry level. Those who are wanting to start a network, develop bylaws, and we will be going down the applicant pool from last year for this year. So the next competitive cycle for this program is fiscal year 2027. So, look out for this program in fiscal year 2027. This is typically a one-year program for $100,000 each.

And for those who are a bit more established than planning, but not as advanced as the Rural Health Network Advancement Program, not ready for that yet. This program, we have the network development program, and this program supports integrated healthcare networks to achieve efficiencies, expand access, coordinate and improve quality of basic healthcare services. This program will be available, again, competitive for applications in fiscal year 2027, and it's a four-year program at $300,000 per awardee each year.

And then we are also excited to see an increase in funds targeted to the Northern Border Region programs. With this increase, we are working to develop a new planning program, and the total funding for this program is about 1.8 million. We are in the planning stages of this program, so more information to come. So please make sure you sign up for our announcements for more details. And now I'll turn it over to Rachel.

Rachel Moscato: Thank you, Kathryn. Hi everyone, I'm Rachel Moscato and I am the Director of the Hospital State Division within the federal office. So, I'm going to talk a little bit about one new program that we've got upcoming as well as a tool that I'd like to make sure you're all aware of that can help with accessing some support that we have available.

So, the first program I want to talk about, so similar to what Kathryn was just talking about with the network advancement program, we also have a program coming out to support the building of rural integrated health networks within the Mississippi Delta region. So a key difference I want to note on our program is that while we'll still be providing support for the development of networks and with primary care clinics, rural hospitals around developing the legal administrative infrastructure that's necessary to get a network going, this program is open to brand new networks, maybe those who are just starting to come together as well as existing networks that are maybe needing some additional support with the legal and some of that administrative infrastructure.

The other point I really want to highlight, this program is specifically for folks that are working in the Mississippi Delta region. So, this will include the rural counties and parishes that are within the DRA footprint, the Delta Regional Authority, and that is eight states through the mid-southern part of the country. So, if you are in one of those states, then this is a great opportunity. For FY '26, this is a pilot of this program, so we're anticipating making up to eight awards, each award at about $350,000 each year for two years. This is planning, so it'll be just a two-year award for those. And then I'll just say this one is still in the early development phase. We're anticipating it being released sometime in the spring. So I'd really encourage you to keep an eye on the FORHP announcements where we'll share new information as we get closer to being publishing that NOFO.

And then the next thing I wanted to highlight is a tool that we have recently developed with the Rural Health Information Hub. So, for those of you on the call that are a rural hospital or a clinic, or if you're someone on the call who supports and works with rural hospitals and clinics, we offer from our office a suite of programs that provide free technical assistance to rural hospitals and clinics across the country. The programs offer a range of services from industry experts including financial and operational assessments, revenue cycle enhancements, service line additions, as well as TA for those hospitals that are looking to potentially convert to a rural emergency hospital.

So, we cover the gamut with our programs. And one thing we recognized is that now that we've got six individual programs, it can be really difficult as a rural hospital to understand which program is the right one that's going to meet your needs. So, what we hope is that this rural hospital TA finder will be really helpful for you in that first step in understanding and accessing this technical assistance.

So, the design of this tool is so great. It's really easy to use. It's interactive. You literally, it's got check boxes where you can click off the things that you're interested and working on within your facility. It has an area to put in your county, so that way you're in the Mississippi Delta or the Appalachian Regional Commission, it'll show you those programs that are offered exclusively for those regions. And it will also help give you the contact information for your State Office of Rural Health if you aren't familiar with them. That's another really great resource for rural hospitals and clinics who are looking for resources at the state level. So, it's really great. It's robust, it provides all kinds of information, and when you put in your information, it will show you the hospital or the programs that are a best fit for you and give you links so that you can easily access the applications for those programs or to learn more about them.

And then the last thing I just want to highlight, I mentioned we have six programs. I'm not going to go through all of them individually. There's quite a few on this slide, but I did want to include it so that way you can look at these, you can dive deeper. There's a link to each program's website as well as the application. All of these programs have what we consider a bit of a rolling application process, meaning you can apply at any time. Each program forms cohorts of hospitals to start receiving TA at a specific time of the year. However, as soon as you submit an application, you'll hear from somebody from the folks who provide the technical assistance, and they'll get those conversations started with you to get the ball rolling so that you're not sitting and waiting, wondering what happened to your application.

So, I did just want to put this here. We've got, as I mentioned, we do have a couple of regional programs. So, if you're in the Mississippi Delta or the Appalachian Regional Commission, we do have a program that serves each one of those regions. And then we have three national programs. I'm sorry, there's so many now, it's hard to keep track of them all. But we've got the Targeted Technical Assistance program for rural hospitals, we've got the Rural Healthcare Provider Transition Program and the Rural Hospital Stabilization program. And then, as I mentioned, for those hospitals that you work with or if you're one of these hospitals that's interested in understanding more about the Rural Emergency Hospital designation, we also have a TA center that can guide you through that process. They've got tons of information about what it would mean to convert and all of the different facets of conversion. So that's another great resource for you to tap into. So just wanted to put that there for you to dive into on your own time after the call. And that is all I have, and I think I might be the last speaker.

Amber Berrian: Thank you, Rachel. And thank you to our leadership across the divisions for highlighting the upcoming opportunities. As you've heard today, FORHP oversees a broad portfolio of programs designed to strengthen rural communities nationwide. My name is Amber Berrian and I am a senior advisor in the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. To round out today's presentation, I'll highlight several key resources and considerations to support your planning efforts.

I'd like to begin by highlighting an important opportunity to engage more directly in HRSA's work by serving as a grant reviewer. As you may know, peer reviewers play a critical role in the federal grantmaking process. They help ensure applications are evaluated fairly, consistently, and with the appropriate subject matter expertise. We are seeking individuals with expertise in areas such as rural health network development, behavioral health, workforce training, maternal health, and primary care delivery. For FORHP, it is especially important that rural perspectives are well represented in the review process. If you're interested, you may apply through the HRSA website. The link is on the slide, and we encourage you to notify FORHP once your application has been submitted.

In addition to serving as a reviewer, we also encourage you to stay informed about FORHP's activities and funding opportunities. One of the best ways to stay connected is by subscribing to the FORHP weekly announcements. This is our primary communication channel for new funding opportunities, technical assistance resources, and upcoming webinars. If you have not already subscribed, we strongly encourage you to do so, particularly if you anticipate applying for federal funding. The subscription link is included on this slide.

Before applying for any HRSA funding, there are two required registrations to complete. First is SAM.gov. Your organization must have an active registration and a unique entity identifier or UEI. SAM registration can take several weeks, so we strongly encourage you to begin that process early.

Second is Grants.gov. An active account is required in order to submit your application. Also, we've included a link to the Grants.gov Quick Start Guide to assist you. Completing these registrations well in advance will help to avoid any last-minute delays.

As mentioned throughout the presentations, for programs with only minor changes for this competition cycle, reviewing prior notice of funding opportunities can be very helpful. Previous NOFOs provide insight into program structure, eligibility requirements, and application expectations. This slide includes links to prior competitions for the Rural Residency Planning and Development Program and our RCORP program. These materials can serve as useful reference points as you prepare.

In addition to reviewing prior announcements, several technical assistance resources may further strengthen your preparation. Here are a few that applicants find useful. So the first being our evidence-based toolkits for Rural Community Health, and that provides practical guidance and best practices across a range of focus areas. The Rural Health Research Gateway offers data and research to support needs assessment and project design. And as Kerri mentioned, for those focused on graduate medical education, the RuralGME.org is also a valuable resource. If you have specific questions related to rural residencies, you may contact the inbox listed on this slide. Together, these tools can help strengthen both your planning efforts and your application narrative.

That concludes the key resources and next steps I wanted to highlight. We'll now move into the Q&A portion of this session. If you're joining via Zoom, please use the Q&A feature to ask the question. And if you're joining via the YouTube livestream, you may enter the questions in the live chat. My senior advisor colleague, Kristi Martinsen, will read the first question.

Kristi Martinsen: Yep. Thank you, Amber. So, the first question, I know Tom, you mentioned this at the beginning and then several other folks mentioned it throughout their presentations as well. But I think for people who joined a little bit later, this would be helpful again just to hear for those programs where we would be planning on going down the rank order list for FY '26, rather than having a new competition. Could you please reiterate what those programs are, Tom?

Tom Morris: Sure. So, it's the network planning, the Rural Maternal Obstetrics Management Strategies program or RMOMS, the overdose implementation or overdose support. And then Jillian may need to correct me. And then the Delta implementation program. Jillian, was that the right program?

Jillian Causey: The overdose response program.

Tom Morris: Thank you.

Kristi Martinsen: Thank you. So another question, and this is probably for multiple panelists. For the multi-year grants, do we plan to award these every year or only offer them again at the end of a multi-year period? So I know CBD, you have some multi-year grants. How do your timelines work for your multi-year grant programs?

Kathryn Umali: Yes, thank you, Kristi. So for our multi-year programs, we usually award them at the end of the multi-year period. We usually don't, most of our programs, we don't award it every year with the exception so far with our rural, our RMOMS program, our Rural Maternity Obstetrics Strategies Program. So that's the only program that we compete every year, but has a multi-year program. But for this year, what Tom said, we will be going down for the rank order list from last year.

Kristi Martinsen: Thank you. And then Jillian, what about for the Rural Strategic Initiatives programs?

Jillian Causey: Yes, similar to Kathryn, we will provide funding at the end of each year in our non-competitive continuation.

Kristi Martinsen: Thank you. And then for Kerri, for the RRPD program?

Kerri Cornejo: For the RRPD program, this is an entirely new competition this year, new NOFO.

Kristi Martinsen: So next up we have a question. This is for Rachel Moscato about the hospital TA programs. Is board education part of the services that are available through that technical assistance?

Rachel Moscato: Yeah, thank you for that question. Yes, depends on the program, but there is some element of board education included in the consultations that our teams provide to the hospitals. We really try to make an effort when we begin working with hospitals and clinics that we include the board as part of that process and where the hospital feels like it would be good to give them, help them get up to speed with how the TA works, what to expect. We will come in and provide that type of education. And then in some of our programs, we have the capacity to do more nuanced education where needed, around specific topics that the hospital leadership may be interested in. So the answer is it depends on the program, but at some level, yes, we do across the board.

Kristi Martinsen: So next up a question for Kerri around the rural residency planning and development programs related to the criteria for the percentage of rural training required. Could you just talk a little bit about what that 50% rural training requirement is?

Kerri Cornejo: Yeah, so that's a great question. The 50% threshold is referring to the total time in residency training. But I do want to take the opportunity to emphasize that the RRPD funding over the three years is for the planning and startup of new residency programs. So then that 50% threshold applies once the training actually starts in the rural areas for the program that you're planning, which is typically at the end of the period of grant funding. So it doesn't actually matter whether planning itself happens during those years, one, two, or three. So I wanted to make sure to differentiate between the planning period and that training period that follows.

Kristi Martinsen: Kathryn, I'm not sure how much information you have around for the new network advancement program. I know with timelines, we're not sure exactly on the timing, but if you have any information on generally when you think it could be released or any potential eligibility criteria that you could share.

Kathryn Umali: As far as the notice of funding opportunity release, it is anticipated to be released around April. And as far as sharing any eligibility requirements, this program is forecasted on Grants.gov and high-level eligibility is listed on there. And so you can get a sense of what that is. However, obviously we cannot share the more detailed requirements and that kind of stuff. But the eligibility requirements are listed on Grants.gov as this program, new program, the Rural Health Network Advancement Program is forecasted there.

Kristi Martinsen: And I know some folks are asking about programs that we didn't talk about on the webinar today. We were highlighting the programs that are targeted for our FY '26 more competitive programs. So if there are programs that you don't see listed here that you have questions about, please follow up with an email to the program contact that's listed at the beginning of the slide, and we're happy to share more information that way as well.

It looks like we have a question for rural strategic, RSID, the opioids programs. This is for Jillian. So can funds be used to treat persons using other substances than just opioids?

Jillian Causey: Yes, we do allow for funds to be used for SUD and OUD as well as other types of drug use. I mean, for example, we have alcohol use disorder is one of our priority areas where funds can be used. So yes, they can be.

Kristi Martinsen: Another one related to the RCORP programming, asking about eligibility of location. So does the organization applying for funding have to be in a designated rural county or can it be an urban county, but the projects funded target areas are designated as rural counties?

Jillian Causey: Applicants can be in urban or rural counties or areas, but you must serve rural areas and rural communities as designated through the rural designation. So you can be urban or rural, but you must serve rural areas and rural counties.

Kristi Martinsen: Is there technical assistance available for rural health clinics, specifically independent RHCs?

Rachel Moscato: Yes. Thank you for asking that. I know we called it the Rural Hospital Technical Assistance Finder, but we do have a handful of programs that are also available to rural health clinics. So you can use that same tool. It will actually ask you if you're an RHC and you can click the box and it will show you the programs. The three that are available are if you're in the Mississippi Delta in your rural health clinic, that program, as well as the one in the Appalachian Regional Commission. And then the Rural Healthcare Provider Transition Project is also open to rural health clinics.

Kristi Martinsen: So there's a question in here, and maybe this is for you Tom, and the answer might be we're not sure yet, but just in terms of where we will be doing the rank order, going down the rank order list for some of those programs that you had mentioned for FY '26, when folks might be able to anticipate that happening?

Tom Morris: Yeah, I wish we had a good answer for you. I don't. We're still scrambling because of the same things that are shortening the timeline in terms of the shutdown and then the late pass through of the budget. So it's compressed everything. And so we're talking to our folks in the grant shop to figure out what those timelines might be. And in the past, what happens is if you're going down further rank order, we need to reach out to the grantee applicant and make sure they still want to receive the funds. So it takes a little while to go through. So I would say just stay in touch with us. I think we have a generic email inbox. I can't remember what it is, maybe Kristi, but just check back with anybody. If it's opioids, you can check back with Jillian. If it's related to RMOMS or network development, you can check with Kathryn. That'd probably be the best way to go.

Kristi Martinsen: And then Jillian, another question for you on RCORP. Will the RCORP impact program, will that be limited to FY '24 applicants?

Jillian Causey: So, we'll be providing or awarding priority points for those who are either new applicants or those who are previous applicants serving new rural areas.

Kristi Martinsen: Our goal with this webinar was to try to get folks aware of what's coming for FY '26 and start planning even if there's NOFOs that are out right now. So, I'll turn it over to Tom and then maybe any of the other panelists, just to recap what folks who are interested should be doing now to be prepared once those notices of funding come out.

Tom Morris: Yeah, I'll start, but I think I have to think that all of you would've better suggestions with me because my knowledge is a little bit dated, but I would think you'd be talking to your partners right now doing out roles and responsibilities, starting to do letters of commitment, memorandum of understanding. You'd look at the last notice of funding for the link there and start putting together pieces of the application based on what we'd asked for before in most of these programs. Really, start putting together an application as best you can. But the biggest thing is the relationships with the folks who are going to be working with you on it. I think the biggest challenge we face in these compressed timelines is that you have to rush through these things. So our intent with this webinar was to give you enough information to start doing the groundwork and have all that ready. And then when the funding notice comes out, you can just build on it as opposed to starting from scratch that day that it posts. But let me ask my coworkers what they think.

Rachel Moscato: I'll jump in. I concur with Tom, particularly for those of you that may be in the Mississippi Delta region and interested in the Delta Networks program because that one's brand new, so there isn't a previous NOFO to look at. But that doesn't preclude you from figuring out the different partners you'd want to have as part of the application and getting all of those documents in place that Tom was mentioning, letters of support, MOUs, all of those things so that you've at least got that piece together when the NOFO does come out.

Kathryn Umali: Yeah, I agree with Rachel too. Just to concur. A lot of the community-based programs that were discussed today requires some level of partnership, formal and informal, so with documentation required. So that's something that I think that people should really, whoever's interested in applying for our program really should start working on at this point.

Jillian Causey: I'll also add, for RCORP awards, we also have a network component for our grants. And so just keeping in mind that 50% of your partners do have to be rural entities or serving in rural areas. So that may be something to start thinking about and executing.

Kristi Martinsen: Okay. Well, thank you all. And Amber, I will turn it back to you.

Amber Berrian: Thank you, Kristi. So, thank you all for those thoughtful questions and comments. The slides and recording will be shared through our future FORHP weekly announcements. And as a reminder, so we encourage you to confirm your registrations early, review the resources discussed today, and subscribe to the four weekly announcements to stay connected. We appreciate your engagement today and your continued leadership in advancing rural health. In the last slide, you'll see our contact information as well as the email inbox that Tom mentioned. And on behalf of the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy, thank you for joining us.

Kristine Sande: All right. Well, thank you so much. That brings us to the end of today's webinar. Thanks so much to all of our speakers from FORHP for the information that they've shared with us today.