Retta Jacobi stepped onto a metal platform that lifted her to an entrance on the side of a custom-designed semitrailer. Once inside, she lay down on a platform that technicians slid into an MRI machine. Jacobi hoped the scan would help pinpoint the source of the pain in her shoulders.

The mobile MRI unit visits Southwest Healthcare Services, the hospital in Bowman, North Dakota, each Wednesday. Without it, the community’s 1,400 residents would have to arrive 40 minutes to get to an MRI machine, an expensive piece of medical equipment the hospital couldn’t afford on its own.

Southwest Healthcare Services and 21 other independent, rural North Dakota hospitals are part of the Rough Rider Network, which used its members’ combined patient rolls to negotiate better prices for the mobile imaging truck.

Independent rural hospitals are increasingly joining what are called clinically integrated networks, collaborative groups that allow them to avoid selling out to larger health systems while sharing resources to save money and improve patient care. Many are motivated by the chance to combine their patient rolls for value-based care contracts, a growing reimbursement model in which insurers pay providers based on the quality of care they provide and the health outcomes of their patients.

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On September 11, 2025, the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP), located within the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), updated the Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer to incorporate the latest Census Bureau data on rural areas.

In August, the United States Department of Agriculture, Economic Research Services (USDA-ERS) published updated Rural-Urban Commuting Area (RUCA) codes and Road Ruggedness Scale (RRS) codes to reflect the latest Census Bureau data. FORHP uses this data to define rural areas so that organizations can apply for rural health grants at HRSA.

Consistent with past census data updates, newly added rural areas will immediately go into effect and newly metro areas will be grandfathered for one year for the purposes of FORHP rural health grant applications. This data update will not disrupt or change any existing FORHP awards. FORHP’s updates incorporate the latest from USDA and Census Bureau and do not reflect any changes to our methodology for identifying rural health areas.

You can read more about FORHP’s rural definition for its rural health grants here. More information about this rural eligibility update will be available in forthcoming FORHP rural health grant notices of funding opportunities. For rural definition questions, please e-mail RuralPolicy@hrsa.gov.

As stewards of federal resources, the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) remains firmly committed to protecting and improving the health and well-being of Americans, particularly those who are underserved, medically vulnerable, or live in areas where access to care is limited. Our duty is not just to serve, but to serve wisely, effectively, and with measurable results that justify every taxpayer dollar invested. 

In alignment with the current administration’s focus on outcomes-driven governance and responsible spending, HRSA is emphasizing targeted investments that strengthen the nation’s core healthcare infrastructure, address pressing health challenges, and deliver real results for communities across the country. 

HRSA is committed to prioritizing gold-standard science and the mission outlined in the Make America Healthy Again Commission Report to deliver better health outcomes. Through its critical public health and workforce programs, HRSA intends to address the nation’s most pressing health challenges, including the chronic disease epidemic, the mental health crisis, obesity, nutritional deficiencies, exposure to chemical and environmental toxins, and overreliance on medical interventions.

HRSA is committed to supporting programs and initiatives that will focus on the underlying causes of disease, including lifestyle modifications and other modalities that are shown to be effective in improving health outcomes. HRSA will preference programs, partnerships, grants, cooperative agreements, contracts, and other funding mechanisms that prioritize these objectives. 

By narrowing our focus to high-impact, data-supported interventions, HRSA is reinforcing the programs that work, cutting inefficiencies, and directing resources to areas of greatest need. From rural towns to tribal nations, and from health centers to home visiting programs, our goal is clear: improve health outcomes while honoring the trust placed in us by the American people.  

Our strategy is rooted in time-tested principles: responsible governance, fiscal restraint, local empowerment, and accountability. Through stronger oversight, partnerships with community-based providers, and support for innovation in care delivery, HRSA is advancing its mission while ensuring that federal dollars are not wasted, misdirected, or overextended. 

We understand that taxpayer dollars are not unlimited. Every investment must be justified by results. By focusing on measurable outcomes, emphasizing efficiency, and ensuring transparency at every level of operations, HRSA is fulfilling its charge not only to improve healthcare access, but to do so in a way that reflects respect for American taxpayers and the limits of federal responsibility. 

This commitment to focused, accountable action drives every policy we craft, every program we fund, and every reform we implement. We are proud to serve the American people and equally proud to do so with discipline, integrity, and impact. 

Read more at: Advancing HRSA’s Mission Through Focused, Accountable Action | HRSA

The NIH is accepting applications for the Extramural Loan Repayment Program (LRP).  Awardees can receive up to $100,000 in qualified educational debt repayment with a two-year award.

To learn more about eligibility requirements, application dates, and the benefits of receiving an LRP award, be sure to visit the LRP website, check out our overview video, and attend one of our upcoming events:

• October 9 – LRP Technical Assistance Webinar
• November 6 – LRP Ask Me Anything Session

Please note that the deadline to apply is November 20, 2025.

Hall’s Market was the center of activity in tiny Snow Shoe, Pennsylvania, for more than a century until a raging electrical fire destroyed the building in 2020. A year later, the town’s medical center shut down. The back-to-back losses left residents with no convenient way to buy groceries or see a doctor.

Enter students from MGMT 365, a Penn State Smeal College of Business course that focuses on social entrepreneurship.

“The idea was to work with Penn State Health collaboratively to find potential ways to increase food access, because fresh food access and health care access work hand in hand,” said Travis Lesser, an instructor in corporate innovation and entrepreneurship and the director of Smeal’s Center for the Business of Sustainability. He also founded Bellefonte-based Appalachian Food Works, a food hub that works with Central Pennsylvania farmers to increase sales channels. “If people are eating healthier, they don’t have as much of a need for health care,” said Lesser.

Physician Michael McShane from the Penn State College of Medicine and his medical students were already visiting the area regularly with the Lion Mobile Clinic and knew that residents were feeling cumulative effects from a lack of basic services.

“It became very clear that if we wanted to make change in the communities that we were going to, we needed to think about it more broadly than just healthcare access,” McShane said.

That led to the partnership between business and health, and Lesser made finding food-access solutions for Snow Shoe and the entire Mountaintop Community the main focus of his spring 2025 class. The project is continuing this fall.

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The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) issued a reminder that Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) can bill for facility and professional outpatient services only when physicians or practitioners reassign their billing rights to the CAH, also known as Method II billing. CAHs can prevent claim denials with reason codes 31006 and 31007 (indicating that providers don’t have a reassignment on file in the Provider Enrollment, Chain, and Ownership System (PECOS) if they submit the reassignment application through PECOS or the paper Form CMS-855I. Starting in January 2026, CMS will deny CAH claims for professional services if a reassignment is not in PECOS.

As of July 2025, QCOR reports an estimated 1,400 CAHs currently operational in the U.S.

Click here for the details.