Sneak Preview: HRSA To Provide $21M To Boost Rural Physicians
(The following was excerpted from an article in the Federal Grants Development Handbook.) To increase the number of physicians working in rural areas, the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has made $21 million in federal fiscal year 2019 funding available to eligible applicants to create new rural residency programs or rural training tracks (RTT) in family medicine, internal medicine and psychiatry.
According to HRSA, rural communities are much less likely to have the health professionals necessary to adequately care for their communities’ needs. Of the nearly 2,000 rural counties nationwide, HRSA has declared 1,550 — 78 percent — as primary care health professional shortage areas.
Under the Rural Residency Planning and Development Program (RRPD) (CFDA No. 93.155), which is authorized by Section 711(b)(5) of the Social Security Act (42 U.S.C. 912(b)(5)), as amended, HRSA seeks to award funds to applicants that can start new rural residency programs or RTTs that are sustainable through separate public or private funding beyond the RRPD grant period of performance. Cost sharing or matching is not required under this program. Funds may not be used as ongoing support for resident training.
Rural residency programs are “allopathic and osteopathic physician residency training programs” that primarily train in rural communities, place residents in rural locations for greater than 50 percent of their training, and focus on producing physicians who will practice in rural communities. Under an RTT, residents complete their first year of training within a larger program in an urban academic medical center, and the final two years occur in a rural facility.
“By the end of the period of performance, each awardee is required to have established a rural residency program or RTT” that is accredited by the Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) and “has a stable future financial outlook,” according a recent notice of funding opportunity (NOFO). “The rural residency program or RTT should be capable of effectively training physicians to practice in and meet the clinical needs of rural populations. As such, the number of graduates entering careers in outpatient practices serving rural populations from these programs is expected to be higher than the primary care residency national average.”
Eligible applicants include: (1) rural hospitals; (2) rural community-based ambulatory patient care centers including federally qualified health centers, community mental health centers or rural health clinics; (3) health centers operated by the Indian Health Service, an Indian tribe or tribal organization or an urban Indian organization; (4) schools of allopathic medicine or osteopathic medicine; (5) public or private nonprofit graduate medical education consortiums; or (6) entities such as faith-based and community-based organizations capable of carrying out the grant activities. Either the applicant or a consortium’s primary training partner must be located in a rural area. Current recipients of RRPD-Technical Assistance grants from HRSA are not eligible to receive funding under this notice.
(The full version of this story has now been made available to all for a limited time here.)
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