Rural Health Transformation funding in California
- First-year award
- $234M
- Reported put to work, as of Jul 31, 2026
- $219M
- 94% of the award
- This figure stops at Jul 31, 2026. CMS has announced more for California since. See below.
- Application rounds open today
- 1
Rounds to look at
- Nov 20, 2026OpenBudget Period 1 Tribal Set-AsideCalRHT
$11.7M. Approximately $11.65 million total reserved pool; formula-based allocations.
Applications open October 26. Rural THPs may seek recruitment/retention, EHR and FM-OB capacity; urban rural-serving THPs have FM-OB-only pathway. Eligibility verification and agreement required.
Read the official notice ↗Checked Nov 9, 2026.
- No date postedConfirm with the stateIHOPE and Maternal Behavioral Health fellowshipsCalRHT / UCI
The state's funding page links the fellowship application but shows no status or deadline. The application form lists no end date and says the program depends on available funds.
Read the official notice ↗Checked Nov 7, 2026.
What the state review found, as of Nov 7, 2026
CalRHT's noncompetitive Tribal Set-Aside application is open until November 20 at 3 p.m. Pacific. Its funding page also links UCI clinician fellowship applications with no posted deadline. The major competitive rounds are closed, and the Budget Period 1 award list is still tentative.
Where California's money has gone so far
As California reported it to CMS through Jul 31, 2026. These are commitments to agencies, contractors and partners, not a measure of what has reached patients.
- Workforce$72.9M
- Innovative care$43.9M
- Training and technical assistance$39.2M
- Appropriate care availability$36M
- Program administration$14.7M
- IT advances$12.4M
Initiative detail
Rural Health Transformative Care Model$92.4M
- $1MA consultant for the Evaluating Rural Pathways to Value Based Payment program. (Appropriate care availability)
- $35MIn grant funds to support Transformative Payments for Strategically Located Hospitals. (Appropriate care availability)
- $3.7MInitiative level support and evaluation. (Innovative care)
- $39MIn grant funds for Hub-and-Spoke Accelerator partnerships. (Innovative care)
- $1.2MIn personnel expenses for Initiative 1. (Innovative care)
- $12.4MHub-and-Spoke implementation and technical assistance support. (Training and technical assistance)
Rural Health Workforce Development$73.2M
- $300KCommunity outreach and communications support. (Training and technical assistance)
- $65.7MIn grant funds to expand and support rural workforce capacity and provider retention and relocation. (Workforce)
- $6MA workforce needs mapping model. (Workforce)
- $1.3MIn personnel expenses for Initiative 2. (Workforce)
Rural Health Technology and Tools$36.6M
- $11.7MIn grant funds for technology infrastructure enhancement. (IT advances)
- $722KIn personnel expenses for Initiative 3. (IT advances)
- $24.3MThe Rural Technical Assistance Center and research and data development support. (Training and technical assistance)
Program operations$16.9M
- $2.2MGrant oversight and grant application management. (Training and technical assistance)
- $7.5MThird party grant administrator services. (Program administration)
- $366Inter-department service costs. (Program administration)
- $642KIn personnel expenses. (Program administration)
- $6.6MSupplies, travel, and indirect costs. (Program administration)
Source: RHTP Obligated Funds Report ↗
What CMS has announced for California
California's EHR technology readiness assessment
Published by California's Department of Health Care Access and Information (HCAI) for the state's Rural Health Transformation program, CalRHT. Version 1.0, finalized August 18, 2026.
Thirty questions, plus ten optional deep-dive questions, across six areas: leadership and strategy, workforce and training, workflow and operations, technology infrastructure, data, privacy and interoperability, and finance and sustainability. Each question is scored 1 to 5, and a small team can finish it in 30 to 60 minutes.
Organizations that receive CalRHT EHR Modernization Grant money must complete it. Anyone thinking about applying can use it too.
How the planner lines up
Three of the planner's readiness questions ask, in short form, what California's assessment asks in depth: whether one executive owns the project, who has approved it, and who pays once the grant ends. If you have done California's assessment, answer those three the same way here. The planner does not score workforce, workflow, technology or data privacy, so California's assessment is the place for those.
Checked Nov 7, 2026.
Funding is one part of the job
A round in California can pay for the work. It cannot give you an owner, a plan your board trusts, or a go-live your staff believe in. That is the work I do with community and rural hospitals.
Thirty minutes, confidential, no cost.
Who built this
Jeff Paul
Founder & Principal, JP Healthcare Advisors
During eight years at Cerner, I worked across 170+ healthcare technology deployments. My deepest specialization was CommunityWorks: more than 90 community, rural, district, and critical-access hospitals in 34 states, including 62 critical-access hospitals.
Have a project in California?
Answer a few questions and see whether it has a path, what stands in the way, and what to do first.