As you may have seen reported, Health and Human Services (HHS) Secretary Kathleen Sebelius announced this week a nearly $1 billion initiative that will fund awards to build on earlier rounds of funding to transform the health care system by delivering better care and lowering costs. This second round of Health Care Innovation Awards will fund applicants that have a high likelihood of driving health care system transformation and delivering better outcomes.
This round of Health Care Innovation Awards differs from the first round in that CMS is specifically seeking innovations in four areas:
1. Rapidly reducing costs for patients with Medicare and Medicaid in outpatient hospital and other settings;
2. Improving care for populations with specialized needs;
3. Testing improved financial and clinical models for specific types of providers, including specialists; and
4. Linking clinical care delivery to preventive and population health.
In the last round of Health Care Innovation Awards, there was only one clear rural program that was funded. NRHA encourages rural providers and networks to submit a proposal to HHS to fund a rural innovation program. More importantly, we sincerely hope that HHS does a better job of considering the value of innovative rural programs and includes more of these projects in their second round of funding awards.
Here is a fact sheet that is available to get you started. Letters of intent are due June 28, 2013. Good luck and let’s let rural lead the way in transforming our nation’s health care system.