COMING SOON!

The Health Resources and Services Administration's (HRSA) Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) will be releasing a Notice of Funding Opportunity (NOFO) for a new Rural Communities Opioid Response Program (RCORP) initiative called RCORP-Medication-Assisted Treatment Expansion (HRSA-19-102). HRSA plans to invest approximately $8 million in rural communities as part of this funding opportunity.

The funding opportunity will be posted at the following link in the next few weeks:
https://www.grants.gov/web/grants/search-grants.html?keywords=hrsa-19-102

Successful RCORP-Medication-Assisted Treatment Expansion (MAT Expansion) award recipients will receive up to $725,000 for a three-year period of performance to establish or expand medication-assisted treatment (MAT) in eligible hospitals, health clinics, or tribal organizations located in high-risk rural communities.

Eligible applicants include domestic public or private, non-profit or for-profit:

• Rural Health Clinics, as defined by Social Security Act Section 1861(aa) and 42 CFR Parts 405 and 491;
• Critical Access Hospitals, as defined by Section 1820 (e) of the Social Security Act and 42 CFR 485 subpart F;
• Health Center Look-Alikes, defined as entities that meet all Health Center Program statutory, regulatory, and policy requirements but do not receive funding under section 330 of the Public Health Service Act, as amended (see https://bphc.hrsa.gov for more information);
• Other small rural hospitals with 49 available staffed beds or less, as reported on the hospitals’ most recently filed Medicare Cost Reports; or
• Tribes or tribal organizations (excluding health centers that receive Health Center Program federal award funding).

All applicants must be located, and all services must be provided, in HRSA-designated rural areas (as defined by the Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer). Applicants do not need to be RCORP-Planning award recipients to apply for this funding opportunity. Applicants may apply for RCORP-MAT Expansion funding if they have applied for RCORP-Implementation funding, but they must detail in their applications how they will avoid duplication of effort and services if awarded both grants.

Given the complex and multifaceted nature of substance use disorder/opioid use disorder (SUD/OUD), as well as the need to generate adequate patient volume to sustain MAT, HRSA requires that applicants partner with at least two other separately-owned (i.e., different employment identification numbers) entities to implement project activities. These partner organizations do not need to be one of the eligible entities listed above and can come from a wide range of sectors and disciplines.

Award recipients are encouraged to leverage workforce recruitment and retention programs like the National Health Service Corps (NHSC). We encourage you to learn more about how to become an NHSC site and NHSC site benefits. NHSC-approved sites provide outpatient, primary healthcare services to people in health professional shortage areas.

RCORP is a multi-year initiative by HRSA that supports treatment for and prevention of SUD/OUD with the goal of reducing the morbidity and mortality of SUD/OUD in high risk rural communities. In FY18, HRSA awarded 95 grants to rural communities under the RCORP-Planning initiative and funded a technical assistance center to support RCORP award recipients. In FY19, in addition to the RCORP-MAT Expansion grants, HRSA anticipates awarding approximately 75 RCORP-Implementation awards, as well as a new round of RCORP-Planning grants.

You can subscribe to receive updates on this and other funding opportunities through grants.gov: https://www.grants.gov/manage-subscriptions.html. Potential applicants are encouraged to register early with grants.gov, SAM, and DUNS, as the registration process can take up to a month to complete.

For more information about RCORP, please contact Federal Office of Rural Health Policy. To learn more about how HRSA is addressing the opioid epidemic, visit https://www.hrsa.gov/opioids.