Announcements from the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy

July 5, 2018

Funding Opportunities

CDC Funding for Public Health Crisis Response – July 30. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) will make 69 cooperative agreements with awards ranging from $100,000 up to $5 million to increase capacity for responding to the opioid crisis, declared a public health emergency last year. Eligible applicants are state, local and territorial health departments and include federally-recognized Native American tribal governments. Applicants must have functional public health emergency management already in place and aligned with CDC’s Public Health Emergency Preparedness Program (PHEP) or the agency’s Epidemiology and Laboratory Capacity for Infectious Diseases (ELC).

Technical Assistance Agreement for Rural Opioid Response Program – August 10. The Health Resources and Services Administration will award $3 million in a cooperative agreement with one entity to provide technical assistance (TA) support for rural communities engaging in activities to combat opioid use disorder (OUD) through the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program – Technical Assistance (RCORP-TA) . Eligible applicants include domestic public or private, non-profit entities. Domestic faith-based and community-based organizations, tribes, and tribal organizations are also eligible to apply. The award recipient will provide resources and expertise in support of prevention, treatment and recovery efforts for OUD in rural areas. See Events section below for assistance for applicants of RCORP-TA.

Policy Updates

Visit the FORHP Policy page to see all recent updates and send questions to ruralpolicy@hrsa.gov

Comments Requested: Updates to CMS Home Health Payments and Policy – August 31. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) displayed a proposed rule for calendar year (CY) 2019 updating payment rates and rules for home health agencies. In addition to a payment rate increase of 2.1 percent ($400 million) compared to last year, the proposal makes changes to the methodology for rural add-on payments mandated by statute and proposes case-mix methodology refinements to be implemented for home health services beginning January 1, 2020, specifically changing the unit of payment from 60-day episodes of care to 30-day periods of care and implementation of the more patient-focused, Patient-Driven Groupings Model (PDGM). Also of note for rural areas, CMS seeks to 1) update the definition of remote patient monitoring, which could now be included as an allowable operation expense; 2) changes requirements for accrediting organizations to ensure access to and burden reduction for small or rural non-certified providers and suppliers; 3) establishes health and safety standards and transitional payment for qualified home infusion therapy suppliers; and 4) seeks feedback related to electronic health information and interoperability.

Resources, Learning Events and Technical Assistance

Assistance for Applicants to RCORP-TA – Tuesday, July 10 at 3:30 pm ET. FORHP will host this one-hour webinar to provide information for applicants to the Rural Communities Opioid Response Program-Technical Assistance (RCORP-TA). See Funding Opportunities section above for more about this cooperative agreement that will support opioid use disorder prevention and treatment efforts in rural communities. Dial-in information can be found on page (ii) in the RCORP-TA Notice of Funding Opportunity announcement on Grants.gov.

AgriSafe: Farm Safety Webinar Series – Thursday, July 12 at 12:00 pm ET. This hour-long session will cover situations that could lead to injury on dairy farms, best practices for handling dairy cows, and how to prevent the spread of zoonotic diseases. The series is sponsored by the New York Center for Agricultural Medicine and Health (NYCAMH) with funding from the NYS Department of Labor and the NY Department of Health. Subsequent NYCAMH sessions will cover the cost of farm safety and how farms can comply with OSHA regulations.

Public Health Response – Prescription Drug and Heroin Epidemic – Thursday, July 12 at 2:00 pm ET. The National Institutes of Health presents this one-hour webinar that will briefly examine the history behind the US opiate crisis and its current epidemiology, including variations by region and state. The second half of the presentation will describe some of the evidence-based efforts available for treating opiate use disorders as well as efforts being implemented to prevent future use.

Key Components of Behavioral Health Integration – Thursday, July 12 at 3:00 – 4:00 pm. The HRSA-SAMHSA Center for Integrated Health Solutions is a national training and technical assistance center that promotes the development of integrated primary and behavioral health services. This hour-long webinar is an interactive, roundtable session providing direct access to experts in the field for questions and consultations.

Resource of the Week

Rural Data Visualizations. The Rural Health Information Hub created a collection of interactive charts, graphs and maps that illustrate key issues related to rural health. These visualizations are based on data from federal and other publicly available data sources and illustrate that data in a variety of formats to show how rural areas compare. They can also be saved and printed.