CMS on January 31 released a Request for Applications (RFA) for their “Frontier Community Health Integration Demonstration Project (FCHID) in collaboration with HRSA’s Office of Rural Health Policy. The FCHID aims to develop and test new models of integrated coordinated healthcare in the most sparsely populated rural counties to improve health outcomes and to reduce Medicare Expenditures.
This model will help critical access hospitals provide more services often unavailable to frontier communities. CMS is going to evaluate if providing these services to frontier communities will improve the quality of care for Medicare beneficiaries, increase patient satisfaction, and reduce Medicare expenditures.
Eligibility is targeted to critical access hospitals in Alaska, Montana, Nevada, North Dakota, and Wyoming. Applications must include a plan to meet the community’s health needs in the areas of telemedicine, nursing facility care, home health services, and ambulance services.
For more details, go to http://innovation.cms.gov/initiatives/Frontier-Community-Health-Integration-Project-Demonstration. Applications are due May 5, 2014.