Alaska finalizes scoring rules for rural health grant round with five-application cap

The Alaska Department of Health posted final scoring rules Friday for its fall round of rural health grants. The round limits each operating entity to five applications and drops the letter of interest step applicants used earlier this year.

The department intends to award about $75 million in the round. Applications are due Oct. 28.

The final rules follow draft versions that, as Alaska News reported Sept. 23, would score applications on cost-effectiveness for the first time and were open for public comment through Oct. 9. The final materials, posted on the department's For RHTP Applicants page, include separate evaluation frameworks for implementation and planning projects, a portfolio review framework and a summary of changes made after public comment.

It is the second funding round under the Rural Health Transformation Program. Alaska's first-year federal award totaled about $272 million, fully funded by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. First-round applicants requested $2.5 billion against the $272 million available.

Year 1 opened with a letter of interest. The Alaska Community Foundation received 1,795 of them from 864 organizations and reviewed them first, before the department invited some organizations to file full applications.

"What we heard from applicants was that the application process was too long between the letters of interest to the application. That was 24 weeks. We have shrunk that down and we've removed the LOI process," Health Commissioner Heidi Hedberg said at a department webinar earlier this month.

A group with several facilities may submit five applications for each operating entity that serves a distinct community. Each such entity must register its own organizational profile, separate from its project applications.

Hedberg said January is the earliest possible start for fall-cycle awards. Organizations that still need Year 2 funding to continue Year 1 projects should apply in the spring cycle, she said.