The HRSA Rural Residency Planning & Development (RRPD) Technical Assistance Center (RRPD-TAC) recently compiled a state by state summary on the 37 grant programs that are developing new rural residency programs across 26 states. Please see the program summaries by downloading here.

The RRPD program is a multi-year cross-bureau collaboration between HRSA’s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy and the Bureau of Health Workforce that provides start-up funding for the development of new, accredited, and sustainable rural residency programs in family medicine, internal medicine, and psychiatry. In FY19, HRSA awarded $20M to organizations across 21 states to support the planning and development costs of establishing sustainable residency program, while obtaining accreditation through the Accreditation Council of Graduate Medical Education (ACGME). More recently, HRSA awarded over $8M to 11 new grant recipients up to $750,000 per award in August 2020.

Awarded in FY18, the RRPD-TAC provides resources and tools to support RRPD grant recipients and other organizations interested in developing new graduate medical education programs in rural communities. To learn more about the RRPD-TAC and to sign up for resources, please visit www.ruralGME.org or contact info@ruralGME.org.

For questions related to the RRPD program, please contact Sheena Johnson (Program Coordinator) at sjohnson@hrsa.gov.

A new publication targeting our provider community, “Stay Protected – Get a Flu Shot” will be available for order on December 1. And best of all, there is no charge! In order to request your copies, simply set up an account on the CMS Product Ordering page here: https://productordering.cms.hhs.gov/pow/?id=pow_login; and once approved, you can order the publication by either searching by the title (above), or entering pub. no. 12115. General delivery time is approximately one week.

The U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) announced the official launch of the AskUSDA Contact Center program. The AskUSDA Contact Center will serve as the “one front door” for phone, chat, and web inquires, transforming how the public interacts with USDA and providing an enhanced experience for the public.

Prior to the creation and implementation of AskUSDA, members of the public had to navigate dozens of phone numbers and had no chat function or online platform for self-service, creating frustrations and inefficiencies.  AskUSDA was created to make USDA more responsive to the public by providing a single destination for phone, chat, and web inquiries. Whether it’s talking to a USDA representative via phone, chatting with a live agent on our website, or communicating with USDA via e-mail, the public will have streamlined access.

The launch of AskUSDA delivers a centralized contact center that offers customer service and consistent information for the public. With over 29 agencies and offices, USDA’s mission impacts every single person in the U.S. and hundreds of millions around the globe. AskUSDA assures that farmers, researchers, travelers, parents, and more have efficient access to the information and resources they need.

AskUSDA is set up to handle common questions across programs that service a variety of audiences. For example, customers who may have basic questions about USDA’s nutrition services can be assisted across phone, e-mail, and web chat by trained AskUSDA representatives, and customers who may have complicated questions about loan programs can be quickly connected to agency experts. AskUSDA also hosts over five thousand articles for a self-service option to help with more common questions such as food safety inquiries or pet-travel guidance.

Over the course of its pilot program, AskUSDA successfully assisted with over 93,000 citizen inquiries, and the AskUSDA website resulted in over 1.4 million knowledge article page views. USDA looks forward to continuing to implement this enhanced best in class contact center across the Department.

The public can contact AskUSDA by phone at (833) ONE-USDA with representatives available 9:00am-5:30pm EST weekdays. The website (https://ask.usda.gov/) is available 24/7 and includes live chat agents available 10:00am-6:00pm EST on weekdays. Inquiries can also be sent via email at any time to askusda@usda.gov.

Starting December 1, Medicare.gov will compile the eight online tools to compare providers, such as Hospital Compare, Nursing Home Compare, and Physician Compare, into one place called Care Compare.  It provides the same information but with a new, streamlined design.  The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services urges providers to update hyperlinks on public-facing websites to the eight original care tools, so patients are directed to the new Care Compare.