Funding · Rural Health Transformation Program
The program sends the money to the states over five years, with cybersecurity, IT modernization, and AI as allowable uses. We give your CFO and grant team the scope, pricing, and use-of-funds mapping a state application expects.
Three minutes, no email.
A scoping conversation. No grant-writing fee.
What it is
The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) was authorized by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21) and is administered by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. CMS distributes $10 billion a year to approved states across fiscal years 2026 through 2030 ($50 billion in total). All 50 states were approved in late 2025, with first-year awards averaging roughly $200 million each, and the money is now flowing to the states and out to rural providers.
$50 billion
Total program funding across fiscal years 2026 through 2030, at $10 billion a year.
50 states
Approved by CMS, with first-year awards averaging roughly $200 million each.
Five years
A defined, five-year window. The structure rewards hospitals with a shovel-ready plan, not a wish list.
Does your hospital fit
Rural and critical-access hospitals, Rural Emergency Hospitals, FQHCs, and rural community health systems are the intended recipients. Exact eligibility is defined state by state, but if you are a rural provider facing the threat curve and the compliance curve with an IT team of one to three, you are squarely who this program was written for.
The honest read. This is real money, and the categories that fund security and AI are live in most states, but it is not guaranteed money, and in most states there is no open cybersecurity application to submit today. The play is to get on your state agency’s contact list and get a scoped, audit-ready project in hand now, so you can move the day your state’s technology or security window opens.
What it funds
CMS names technical assistance, software, and hardware for significant IT advances that improve efficiency, enhance cybersecurity capability development, and improve patient outcomes, alongside data sharing, interoperability, and emerging technology. That maps, almost line for line, onto the work we already deliver for rural hospitals.
The CIS-aligned baseline, MFA and Conditional Access, EDR coverage, and managed security operations with around-the-clock monitoring of identities and endpoints, delivered through M365 InstantOn, CompleteCare Foundations, and Shield. “Enhance cybersecurity capability development” is a named use of funds.
Technical assistance, software, and hardware for significant IT advances are allowable: tenant stand-up, email migration off a legacy on-prem server, and identity modernization. Retiring a legacy mail server is textbook removal of high-risk exposure.
Microsoft Purview operated as a HIPAA program (PHI labeling, DLP, and audit retention) through CompleteCare Govern. Protecting and sharing patient data sits at the center of the program’s data-sharing and interoperability goals.
Governed Microsoft Copilot (formerly Microsoft 365 Copilot), ambient clinical documentation, and revenue-cycle agents, deployed with HIPAA-aligned governance through Healthcare AI Readiness. “Invest in emerging technologies” is an allowable use.
In a grant budget that splits into two clean lines: one scoped project to stand the capability up, and a managed service to keep it running and evidenced across the life of the grant.
The play
Because the funds flow through the states on rolling timelines, the constraint is rarely eligibility or the narrative; it is readiness. The hospitals that win hold a defensible scope, a credible price, and a use-of-funds story the day the application opens. Four moves worth making now, none of which wait on a posted RFP. We are not grant writers: moves two through four are the technical input we own.
Your team
See the technology and cybersecurity windows the day they post. Your state hospital association’s rural improvement group is usually tracking this closely too.
Centered Networks
A documented, audit-ready security baseline plus an AI-readiness foundation, delivered as an InstantOn or CompleteCare engagement with a defined start, finish, and deliverables: the kind of project a reviewer can fund and a grant officer can defend.
Centered Networks
Clear one-time and ongoing costs your CFO can drop into a budget line, with licensing broken out separately and the nonprofit and rural-hospital discounts noted.
Centered Networks
A use-of-funds mapping that ties each line to a named allowable category and the program’s own outcome metrics, framed as a security and compliance initiative rather than a routine IT upgrade: the same package we build for the hospitals we already work with.
This is separate from the Microsoft Rural Health Resiliency Program, and the two stack. RHTP is government grant money your state distributes; the Microsoft Rural Health Resiliency Program is Microsoft’s philanthropic licensing and tooling. A hospital can fund the managed-service and project work through RHTP while taking the Microsoft discounts on the licenses underneath. We help you map each piece of work to the right funding source. For the full rural-hospital practice (HIPAA-aligned managed services, CompleteCare Shield security operations, and governed AI), see rural hospitals.
How it works in your state
Every state runs its own implementation, with its own initiatives, application mechanism, and deadlines. The shape is consistent (funds flow from CMS to the state health agency, then out to rural providers through state-run applications), but the specifics differ. Two live examples:
Georgia
Georgia runs its implementation as the GREAT Health Program, organized around five initiatives (one of them squarely about technology, cybersecurity, and data sharing), distributed to rural providers through the state.
Utah
Utah was awarded roughly $195 million in first-year funding, distributed through the state health agency via provider applications, with cybersecurity risk assessments, threat detection, and technical assistance named in the state’s plan.
Two things to confirm with your state before you budget. First, the procurement pathway: whether your hospital can direct grant dollars to a vendor of choice for the cyber and IT work, or whether that work routes through a state-designated program. Second, the deadline for the specific window you are targeting. Both decide whether a quote is even usable in your application, and both are answerable with a single call to your state agency.
RHTP is a $50 billion federal program authorized by the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (Public Law 119-21) and administered by CMS. It distributes $10 billion a year to approved states across fiscal years 2026 through 2030. All 50 states were approved, with first-year awards averaging roughly $200 million each. States, not individual hospitals, are the grantees, and they distribute the funds to rural providers under approved plans.
Rural and critical-access hospitals, Rural Emergency Hospitals, FQHCs, and rural community health systems are the intended recipients, though exact eligibility is defined state by state. CMS names technical assistance, software, and hardware for significant IT advances that improve efficiency, enhance cybersecurity capability development, and improve patient outcomes among the allowable uses, alongside data sharing, interoperability, and emerging technology including AI.
Not directly from the federal government. CMS awards the funds to states, and each state distributes them to rural providers through its own application process: typically requests for proposals or grant applications run by the state health agency, on rolling windows. The hospitals that win are usually the ones with a scoped, shovel-ready project already in hand when their state’s technology or cybersecurity window opens.
No. Centered Networks is not a grant writer. We give your CFO and grant team what they need to build the technology and security portion of the application: a defensible scope, indicative pricing, and a use-of-funds mapping that ties each engagement to the program’s allowable categories and outcome metrics, in the language a state application expects.
Tell us where your hospital is today and we will map the work to the program’s allowable categories with indicative pricing your grant team can use, and flag the two questions to confirm with your state. No grant-writing fee, no obligation.
Not ready to talk? The three-minute Opportunity Finder (no email) points you to a starting path, and the field note on what the program funds walks the whole picture. The rural hospital practice shows the managed services underneath.
A senior member of our team will reply within one business day to help you scope a fundable project and map it to your state’s program.
This page is general information about a public funding program, not legal, tax, or grant-compliance advice. Confirm allowable uses, eligibility, and procurement rules with your state’s administering agency before relying on them.