North Dakota has submitted its Rural Health Transformation Program application to the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, or CMS.
The program is part of last summer’s One Big Beautiful Bill Act. North Dakota’s application outlines how the state will invest more than $500 million over the next five years to strengthen rural health care.
Sarah Aker is medical services executive director with North Dakota Health and Human Services. She says the application aims to improve access, quality and outcomes for North Dakotans in rural communities.
"We're really hoping this investment will really set us up for a sustainable path for future health care delivery. We have a lot of changes that happen in the health care system; and I think there's a lot of challenges in rural areas in particular. Workforce shortages, facilities that have a lot of fragile finances, and what we see is outcome gaps for tribal and frontier and rural communities in particular. We're looking at strategies to help bridge that gap, to help focus on sustaining strategies that will make care more accessible and stronger in terms of the rural workforce."
The federal law appropriates $50 billion over five years, splitting half equally among all states. The other half will be given based on states’ applications and metrics that show where the funding would make the biggest impacts.