Rural Spotlight

Webinar: CMS Emergency Preparedness Requirements, May 26

May 14, 2026

Webinar: CMS Emergency Preparedness Requirements, May 26

This webinar focuses on helping healthcare professionals strengthen their emergency preparedness and ensure readiness for unexpected disasters.

In this session, you will gain a clear understanding of the key requirements for emergency preparedness in healthcare settings. You will also learn how to identify and apply best practices to build and strengthen an effective disaster preparedness program.

You will learn:

  • How to interpret and apply CMS emergency preparedness requirements in your organization,
  • The role of healthcare coalitions in coordinated disaster response and community readiness,
  • Common compliance gaps and how to proactively address them, and
  • Practical, actionable strategies to strengthen emergency operations planning and response.

Target Audience:

  • Healthcare leaders,
  • Safety and quality professionals,
  • Facilities managers, and
  • Emergency preparedness coordinators responsible for regulatory compliance and operational readiness.

Cost: Free

When: Tuesday, May 26, 11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

Whitepaper: Illinois FQHC Uses EHR Education as a Strategic Lever for Performance

May 14, 2026

Whitepaper: Illinois FQHC Uses EHR Education as a Strategic Lever for Performance

Imagine scaling EHR workflow training across 35 health centers with just four trainers – without relying on classroom instruction.

That was the reality for Access Community Health Network (ACCESS), Illinois’ largest federally qualified health center. Rather than expand headcount, ACCESS redesigned its Epic education strategy to embed learning directly within the EHR.

By centralizing simulations, tip sheets and workflow resources inside Epic – supported by a knowledge hub – the team ensured clinicians could access support at the moment of need. Early collaboration with analysts and clinical leaders kept education aligned with operational priorities.

During the 2024 transition to electronic prior authorizations, the results were measurable:

  • Denials decreased 15 – 25%
  • Help desk requests fell 30%
  • Clinicians regained 130+ hours per month, and
  • Electronic prior authorization adoption reached 99%.

ACCESS demonstrates that effective EHR education is not about larger teams – it is about alignment, embedded design and measurable outcomes.

Download the case study to see how training can drive operational efficiency, clinician productivity and a stronger patient experience.

Click Here to Download this Whitepaper

Whitepaper: Ambulatory Control: How Leaders Can Optimize Physician Operations for Sustainable Health System Growth

May 14, 2026

Whitepaper: Ambulatory Control: How Leaders Can Optimize Physician Operations for Sustainable Health System Growth

Outpatient revenue is growing at nearly twice the rate of inpatient – yet in many health systems, ambulatory operations remain fragmented and disconnected from health system strategy. The result: referral leakage, blocked demand, provider burnout and budgets built on assumptions instead of operational reality.

This playbook reframes ambulatory care as the most strategic lever health systems have to stabilize margin and drive growth. It outlines a five-part framework that high-performing organizations are using to move from reactive, siloed clinic management to enterprise-level governance with shared accountability and financial clarity.

Organizations applying this model have seen measurable results, including $15.2 million in revenue unlocked through enterprise-wide ambulatory data integration, a 36% reduction in no-show rates and a 29% increase in schedule template utilization.

Whether you are managing access bottlenecks, referral retention or workforce strain, this playbook connects each challenge to a disciplined, repeatable operating model.

Key takeaways:

  • How fragmented ambulatory data leads to missed revenue and operational blind spots,
  • A five-lever framework covering access, provider engagement, referral integrity, financial transparency and governance,
  • Key metrics and leadership questions for each lever to benchmark performance, and
  • Real-world results from organizations governing ambulatory as an integrated business line.

Click Here to Download this Whitepaper

Webinar: How to Become the Top Choice for Local Patient Care: Reputation, Visibility and Trust in the AI Era, May 21

May 14, 2026

Webinar: How to Become the Top Choice for Local Patient Care: Reputation, Visibility and Trust in the AI Era, May 21

Imagine a patient asking an AI assistant to find the best hospital nearby – and your organization doesn’t appear. Not because of care quality, but because your digital reputation doesn’t reflect it.

This session will give you a clear framework for building the kind of online presence that earns visibility in both traditional and AI-driven search – so your organization shows up when and where patients are looking.

Baptist Memorial Health Care is already doing this work. In just two years, the system scaled from 4,000 to more than 50,000 annual reviews, raised its average rating from 4.4 to 4.7 stars and earned Best in Class reputation awards for 400-plus locations. Their experience offers a practical roadmap for health systems ready to take reputation strategy seriously.

Join this conversation to learn what it takes to turn patient feedback into a competitive advantage.

  • How Baptist Memorial Health Care built a systemwide reputation strategy that delivered measurable results,
  • Why reviews and patient sentiment are now critical to visibility in AI-powered search,
  • How to position your organization as the top choice when patients use conversational AI to find care, and
  • Actionable steps to operationalize feedback collection and strengthen patient trust at scale.

Cost: Free

When: Thursday, May 21, 12:00 p.m. – 1:00 p.m.

Click Here to Register

On-Demand Webinar: The End of the Inpatient-Only List: What Providers Need to Know

May 14, 2026

On-Demand Webinar: The End of the Inpatient-Only List: What Providers Need to Know

CMS is once again proposing that Medicare phase out the Inpatient-Only List. While the proposal faces feedback and review, it would be a major regulatory shift for hospitals impacting how inpatient admissions are justified, documented and reimbursed with implications for compliance, revenue integrity and care planning.

In this webinar, Dr. Ronald Hirsch, vice president of Regulations and Education, provides expert strategies for managing this major policy change to avoid claim denials and revenue loss.

Watch this webinar and earn continuing education credit while exploring these key learning objectives:

  • Understanding CMS’s approach to phasing out IPO procedures,
  • Accurately determining and documenting inpatient admission status,
  • Anticipating the impact on Medicare beneficiaries,
  • Addressing admission status challenges with Medicare Advantage plans, and
  • Evaluating how non-Medicare payers may respond to the IPO list changes.

Cost: Free

Click Here to Access this On-Demand Webinar

Group Prenatal Care in Rural Areas

May 14, 2026

Group Prenatal Care in Rural Areas

This Issue Brief, developed by the FORHP-funded Rural Maternal Health Data Support and Analysis Program, describes how prenatal care can be delivered in a group setting in rural communities, drawing from the experiences of a Rural Maternity and obstetrics Management Strategies (Rural MOMS) network in northern Minnesota. It also shares lessons learned from other group-oriented maternal health services provided by FORHP-funded networks.

Click Here to Read Issue Brief

Click Here to Read More About Rural MOMS Program

First Healthcare Advisory Committee (HAC) Meeting, Open to Public, May 18

May 14, 2026

First Healthcare Advisory Committee (HAC) Meeting, Open to Public, May 18

The Healthcare Advisory Committee (HAC) advises the Secretary of the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services and the Administrator of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on programs and policies to improve the U.S. healthcare system.

This first meeting will include an introduction of Committee members, discussion of the Committee’s vision, and establishment of bylaws. A detailed final agenda is posted on the Committee’s website and will include Zoom webinar access information.

The meeting will be held virtually, and no registration is required for those who wish to watch or provide public comment.

Click Here to Visit the Committee’s website

Click Here to View the Agenda

Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO Application Toolkit Available, Apply by June 23

May 14, 2026

Medicare Shared Savings Program ACO Application Toolkit Available, Apply by June 23

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a toolkit with resources for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) to apply for the upcoming cycle of the Medicare Shared Savings Program.

Applications will be accepted through the ACO Management System from June 9 through noon ET on June 23.

For more information, visit the Application Types & Timeline webpage.

Email questions to SharedSavingsProgram@cms.hhs.gov

CMS Expands Electronic Prior Authorization Initiative

May 14, 2026

CMS Expands Electronic Prior Authorization Initiative

This week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) announced the expansion of electronic prior authorization as part of its Health Tech Ecosystem initiative. Building on efforts that began in January 2026, CMS is strengthening collaboration among health plans, providers, and certified electronic health record (EHR) vendors, and digital health developers – alongside payers – to enable end-to-end, consistent electronic prior authorization workflows across the healthcare system.

Participants will also align with CMS interoperability and Prior Authorization Final Rule requirements, focusing on closing workflow gaps and improving technical coordination across stakeholders. Full implementation of electronic prior authorization infrastructure is expected by January 1, 2027.

Click Here to Read CMS Electronic Prior Authorization

Click Here to Read More About Health Tech Ecosystem

Targeted Technical Assistance for Rural Hospitals Program – Deadline for Next Cohort is September 30

May 14, 2026

Targeted Technical Assistance for Rural Hospitals Program – Deadline for Next Cohort is September 30

Participants in this program – including Critical Access Hospitals and inpatient Prospective payment System hospitals – receive virtual and on-site technical assistance to address financial and operational challenges while maintaining essential health services for their communities.

Funded by FORHP and carried out by experts at the Georgia Southern University Center for Rural Public Health Practice and Research, the program accepts applications on an ongoing basis, with a cut-off of September 30 for the next cohort.

Click Here to Learn More and Apply