OPINION:
Although much of the health care news coverage over the second half of last year focused on the debate over Medicaid spending, less of it has been on the opportunities made available by the massive $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, which could provide the building blocks of a much-needed revolution in underserved areas across our nation.
The five-year fund has drawn applications from all 50 states. If used correctly, it could be deployed to make enormous, long-term changes, overhauling systems, scrapping outdated ways of thinking and dramatically reducing taxpayer dollars’ waste and inefficiencies.
Mehmet Oz, administrator for the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, has said that the program aims to improve efficiency, build up a strong rural health care workforce, test new models of innovative care delivery and expand the use of technology to promote access to services and increase efficiency in rural areas.
The fund is fully in line with those who have called for money to be used for longer-term, structural changes, including using a data-driven approach to how states deliver services to those in need at the state and local levels.
However, if that $50 billion is used solely to plug state funding gaps, then it will be burned through in a few years. If the federal government approves only those that meet the long-term goals it has set, and if state governments are looking to the future rather than the past, then we could still be talking about this in decades to come.
There are indications of how this could happen. Tech companies such as Unite Us, whose former CEO recently joined CMS, have deployed their technologies nationwide, helping states update their systems, maximize efficiency and increase the value of taxpayer dollars.
An example cited by CMS as the type of thing it wants to see in applications is Missouri’s Transformation of Rural Community Health program, launched in 2024. It aims to direct resources to rural communities to address the root causes of poor health.
The effort has made more than 400 community-based programs available and has served more than 2,700 people through six counties as of Nov. 15. The Unite Us platform offers secure closed-loop referrals and revenue management capabilities that allow hospitals and others to predict needs, coordinate services and track outcomes, secure reimbursements, and prove a return on the investment.
As a result, Medicaid recipients have greater access to services, including medically tailored meals, transportation, home modifications and nutrition education. It’s the kind of program that, over time, can get real, tangible results for recipients and taxpayers by using technology to take a community-focused approach.
This is the type of holistic, data-driven program that needs to be encouraged and funded by the Rural Health Transformation Program and that could bring about the revolution in thinking and spending needed in rural areas. Let’s not just plug gaps, but make meaningful change that will still be felt in these areas for decades to come.
It’s time to stop seeing the rural health fund as a stopgap and more as the spark of a revolution that could soon lead to a health care overhaul in crucial underserved areas across the United States.
• Peter Pitts is president of the Center for Medicine in the Public Interest and a former associate commissioner of the Food and Drug Administration.
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