RHSPs are domestic public or private, non-profit or for-profit organizations and corporations, including faith-based and community-based organizations that may be located anywhere in the United States, but providing healthcare-related services in rural areas without meeting any existing federal designations set forth by the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA), the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), and/or any other federal entity from whom funding originates.

We provide services that no one else in our areas provides, which sets us apart from other federally designated rural healthcare services. Rural essential health providers often operate in relative isolation, and our services often discovered by word of mouth. This revelation led us to begin creating a new national trade association: the Rural Health Services Providers Network (RHSPN). The RHSPN has been formed to bring all of us together; to give voice to the needs of these essential health organizations.

While we are still developing the RHSPN, we want you and your organization to be a part of this development by lending your voice, completing our national survey, and being called upon to speak about the needs in your community.

The RHSPN will be advocating with members of Congress and Administrative agencies for the following four action items:

1.) A federal designation for Rural Health Service Providers, as we have defined them;

2.) A legislative change to the definition of “rural” that would expand eligibility calculation for funding opportunities housed within the Health Resources Services Administration (HRSA);

3.) A $2.5 million federal allocation for a study to determine the barriers and facilitators to accessing funding for RHSPs

4.) A $5 billion federal grant allocation in the next COVID-19 relief package specifically targeted at RHSPs that will allow them to build, repair, expand, modernize, and mobilize their operations