RHTP (CMS Rural Health Transformation Program) money goes to states, then to local projects. CMS is not running a national telehealth RFP a city can win alone. Work your state’s sub-award calendar, usually as a partner to a hospital or hub. TAP Health can be that clinical partner, not the grantor.
Last reviewed: September 2026. State examples below are from TAP’s June 2026 research pass. Check the state page before you apply; deadlines move.
What is RHTP?
CMS funds states to improve rural access, including virtual care, workforce, and hospital stability, through 2030. Start at CMS rural health and HRSA’s rural programs at hrsa.gov/rural-health. The application you will fill out is a state NOFO, RFA, or RFP, not a CMS portal for cities.
GAO described the access problem in GAO-21-93 (2020): rural hospital closures cut local services and lengthen travel. RHTP is one federal response, not a municipal product purchase.
Who can apply, and where does a city fit?
Eligibility is state-specific. Recurring patterns:
- Licensed rural or critical access hospitals as prime applicants
- Clinically integrated networks, ACOs, or regional hubs
- Community organizations or local governments, when the state says so
- For-profit telehealth vendors as subcontractors more often than primes
A city manager should ask: who can lead in my state this round, and can we be named as the receiving community? Do not wait for TAP to “submit the grant”; we cannot sign as CMS or your state agency.
Texas: Rural Texas Strong
Texas received the largest single-state RHTP award in TAP’s 2026 pass: about $281 million for FY2026 and about $1.4 billion over five years, run by HHSC’s Provider Finance Department. Program page: Texas HHSC RHTP page.
Initiative 3, “Lone Star Advanced AI and Telehealth,” was listed as an upcoming HHSC RFP with a five-year pool near $150 million. As of the June 2026 pass the RFP was not out. Writeups pointed to CINs, ACOs, or similar cooperatives supporting rural hospitals, RHCs, EMS, and FQHCs as primes. A city or TAP would join as a partner, not as HHSC.
Texas also ran a separate state pediatric tele-connectivity RFA (HHS0017228) that is not RHTP-funded. Do not mix the two in a council memo.
Illinois: HFS as prime, hospitals as first leads
Illinois’s RHTP award in the same pass was $193,418,216 (Award RHTCMS332055), with the Illinois Department of Healthcare and Family Services as prime and a performance period through October 2030. Program page: hfs.illinois.gov.
The first confirmed RHTP NOFO was hospital planning grants (about $28.2 million, AmpliFund). Lead applicants had to be IDPH-licensed hospitals that met CAH or discharge tests. TAP could not apply as lead, but a rural hospital could name a telehealth partner inside that plan.
HFS also posted other NOFOs (for example SHCN) that aggregators sometimes tag next to RHTP. Read the funding source on the PDF; adjacent is not RHTP.
New Mexico: hubs first, community funds next
New Mexico’s FY2026 RHTP figure in the pass was about $211.5 million, run by the Health Care Authority. Program page: New Mexico HCA RHTP page.
Healthy Horizons regional hub organizations were a $76.2 million RFA (due early July 2026 in that snapshot). Hubs convene providers and tribal and community partners and must pass most of the money to local projects. A municipality is a natural local project, not the statewide hub.
HCA also planned a community fund for locally designed solutions, with the RFA expected mid-June 2026 in that pass. Eligibility was not yet published. A small town should watch that round if the hub path is too large.
How should a city use these funds without over-claiming results?
Write the grant narrative as access, then measure EMS separately.
Observed, not RHTP-funded claims. Ferris, Texas: 20% fewer non-emergent EMS runs and more than 50% adoption (City Manager Brooks Williams). Algonquin, Illinois: 70% household retention after notice and a decline window. TAP book: 93% of encounters resolved without another claim; 9.9/10 resident rating; 780+ public-sector partners. Those are program results TAP already cites, not CMS award conditions.
Modeled. $450 to $900 per avoided non-emergency dispatch is TAP’s cost-to-serve range. Method: local fully loaded EMS cost times low-acuity calls you can defend. Do not present that range as an RHTP deliverable unless the state NOFO asked for a savings model and you show the math.
A practical sequence for staff
- Open your state RHTP page and join the agency listserv
- Ask whether a city can be prime, or only a partner
- If only a partner, call the remaining hospital, FQHC, or named hub
- Attach a vendor that already serves governments; do not invent clinical operations mid-grant
- Keep 911 and the ER in the public message; telehealth does not replace them
Want help matching a live sub-award to a city program?
If you have a state NOFO open and need a telehealth partner that already works with cities, start here: Partner with TAP Health.
