CMS encourages states to submit applications that seek to further its strategic goals:
• To make rural America healthy again by promoting prevention and addressing root causes of chronic conditions and diseases.
• Sustain access to care for the long-term.
• Develop and maintain an adequate healthcare workforce.
• Implement innovative care models.
According to CMS, states must use funds for three or more of the approved initiatives / programs:
• Promoting evidence-based, measurable interventions to improve prevention and chronic disease management.
• Providing payments to health care providers for the provision of health care items or services, as specified by the administrator.
• Promoting consumer-facing, technology-driven solutions for the prevention and management of chronic diseases.
• Providing training and technical assistance for the development and adoption of technology-enabled solutions that improve care delivery in rural hospitals, including remote monitoring, robotics, artificial intelligence, and other advanced technologies.
• Recruiting and retaining clinical workforce talent to rural areas, with commitments to serve rural communities for a minimum of five years.
• Providing technical assistance, software, and hardware for significant information technology advances designed to improve efficiency, enhance cybersecurity capability development, and improve patient health outcomes.
• Assisting rural communities to right size their health care delivery systems by identifying needed preventative, ambulatory, pre-hospital emergency, acute inpatient care, outpatient care, and post-acute care services lines.
• Supporting access to opioid use disorder treatment services, other substance use disorder treatment services, and mental health services.
• Developing projects that support innovative models of care that include value-based care arrangements and alternative payment models, as appropriate.
• Additional uses designed to promote sustainable access to high quality rural health care services, as determined by the Administrator.
Because only state government agencies may apply for this funding, the Commonwealth’ s Department of Human Services( DHS) solicited feedback from stakeholders for possible inclusion in the application to CMS. DHS requested that stakeholders offer innovative solutions related to maternal health, mental and behavioral health, aging and access, transportation, and the rural healthcare workforce.
PDA’ s comments focused on the necessity of including an oral health component in the Commonwealth’ s application to CMS. Our recommendations highlighted ways for attracting and retaining more dentists and dental team members to Pennsylvania, including:
• Raise commercial and public insurance reimbursement rates.
• Incentivize dentists by offering scholarship and retirement programs, tax breaks, student loan repayment, and government-backed loans to purchase dental practices in rural areas.
• Implement the ADA’ s Community Dental Health Program to help with prevention and facilitate care for patients to reduce incidence of missed appointments due to transportation and other barriers for patients.
• Improve broadband capability in rural areas and offer more dentists the technology needed to provide telehealth services.
PDA reached out to DHS officials in October to further discuss and refine these ideas before the application to CMS was submitted. We were assured that the application will include a request that funding be used for initiatives aimed at expanding the dental workforce and reducing oral health disparities through access and prevention in rural Pennsylvania.
Grant awardees will be notified by December 31.
NOVEMBER / DECEMBER 2025 | PENNSYLVANIA DENTAL JOURNAL 25