This policy brief from the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center examines elements of state-level elder abuse statutes’ definitions and reporting requirements to investigate potential differences in these policies by state rurality.

Research and analysis from the Kaiser Family Foundation shows rural hospital margins continue to lag relative to urban hospitals, confirming prior findings on rural hospital financial status by the North Carolina Rural Health Research and Policy Analysis Center.

– Apply by February 11, 2025.  FORHP’s Community Based Division will make up to 15 awards to support clinics in reducing the morbidity and mortality associated with occupation related coal mine dust lung disease through the provision of quality medical, outreach, educational, and benefits counseling services for active, inactive, retired, and disabled coal miners. FORHP will hold a technical assistance webinar for applicants  on Thursday, December 19 at 1:00 pm Eastern.  A separate opportunity, HRSA’s Black Lung Data and Resource Center Program, also has a February 11 deadline and will award one cooperative agreement to strengthen the operations of Black Lung Clinics Program grantees with data collection and analysis. A webinar for Data and Resource Center applicants will be held  December 18 at 1:00 pm Eastern. If you were not able to join the webinars, you can request a recording by emailing BlackLung@hrsa.gov.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is accepting new applications for the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration. The demonstration tests cost-based reimbursement for Medicare inpatient services for small rural hospitals with fewer than 51 beds that are not eligible to be Critical Access Hospitals.

As part of a broader rural strategy initiative, CMS hosted a Rural Health Hackathon in August 2024 to collaboratively produce creative, actionable ideas to address health care challenges facing rural communities. This Request for Applications (RFA) is one effort to help address these challenges.

The RFA opens today, December 20, and the application is available on Rural Community Hospital Demonstration webpage. Hospitals interested must apply by 11:59 p.m. Eastern Standard Time on March 1, 2025. Hospitals currently participating in the demonstration do not need to complete a new application.

For the latest information on the demonstration, visit the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration webpage.

If you have questions about the demonstration, please email RCHDemo@cms.hhs.gov

The Assistant Secretary for Mental Health and Substance Use and leader of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), as well as the Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), released a letter urging the public health and substance use disorder (SUD) treatment communities to increase the number of people with SUD who are tested and treated for HIV and viral hepatitis. Integrating HIV and viral hepatitis testing in SUD treatment settings improves treatment initiation, especially when treatment is co-located. This concept is in line with SAMHSA’s 2023–2026 Strategic Plan, which prioritizes the integration of behavioral and physical healthcare.

Andrea Deutsch, the mayor of Narberth, Pennsylvania, and the owner of a pet store in town, doesn’t get health care coverage through either of her jobs. Instead, she is enrolled in a plan she purchased on Pennie, Pennsylvania’s health insurance exchange. Deutsch, who has been mayor since 2018, is paid $1 per year for the job. Her annual income, from Spot’s – The Place for Paws and her investments, is about $50,000. The 57-year-old, who is diabetic, pays $638.38 per month for health care coverage — about half of the $1,272.38 she’d owe without the enhanced federal subsidies Congress and the Biden administration put in place in 2021. But that extra help is set to expire at the end of 2025. It would cost an estimated $335 billion over the next decade to extend it — a step the Republican-controlled Congress and the Trump administration are unlikely to take as they seek budget savings to offset potential tax cuts. States say they don’t have the money to replace the federal aid. In Pennsylvania, for example, doing so would take about $500 million per year, according to Devon Trolley, the executive director of the state’s exchange. The disappearance of the federal help would make coverage unaffordable for millions of Americans, including Deutsch. She said it would be a struggle to pay double what she is paying now. Read more.

The Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (RCORP) – Overdose Response is a one-year program supporting improved health care in rural areas by addressing their immediate and short-term needs related to the provision of substance use disorder services. RCORP – Overdose Response aims to reduce and prevent the risk of overdoses in rural areas.

The RCORP-Overdose Response Program will support specific, short-term substance use disorder prevention, treatment, and recovery activities, as well as work related to capacity building, supportive services, and special populations. Allowable activities are defined in the notice of funding opportunity.

Eligible organizations include all domestic public or private, non-profit, or for-profit entities.

FORHP will hold a webinar for applicants on Thursday January 30, 2025 at 3:00 pm Eastern. Log-information is below:

A technical assistance webinar via Zoom will be held for applicants on Thursday January 30, at 2:00 pm Eastern.

Approximately 20 awards of up to $300,000 each will be made. Apply by March 10, 2025.

For more information about this funding opportunity, contact the Program Coordinator, Diana Wang, at ruralopioidresponse@hrsa.gov.

Click here for additional information and the application package.