Federal Administration Supports Rural Health Care

The Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) investments in rural health care have grown by more than 25%, including:

Supporting the rural health care workforce

• Supporting 6,700 primary care clinicians in 2024 who are practicing in rural communities in return for HRSA-provided loan repayment through our National Health Service Corps Program.
• Graduating more than 2,300 HRSA-funded, newly trained mental health and substance use disorder providers who now work in rural communities.
• Creating more than 400 new physician rural residency slots to train new family medicine, psychiatry, and obstetrics physicians in rural communities.ƒ In 2024 alone, more than 160 new physician residents began training in HRSA-supported rural residency programs. ƒ More than 80 new physicians graduated from HRSA-supported rural residency programs during 2023 – 2024 and began practice.
• Graduating more than 275 physician and dental residents who trained in rural areas through HRSA’s Teaching Health Center Graduate Medical Education Programs.
• Supporting interstate compacts for behavioral health providers like psychologists and social workers to make it easier for providers to serve rural communities by practicing across state lines and providing telehealth services.
• Improving access to health care services in rural communities

Rural primary care

• Expanding access to primary care in rural communities through HRSA-supported health centers,
• which see patients regardless of ability to pay and reached an additional nearly 850,000 rural
• patients since 2020, serving a total 9.7 million rural patients per year.
• Growing primary care staffing in rural communities through rural health centers by 18% since 2020.

Rural mental health and substance use disorder services

• Providing substance use disorder treatment, recovery, or prevention services to more than 6 million people living in more than 1,500 rural communities.
• Increasing mental health and substance use disorder services in rural communities by expanding services in more than 160 rural health centers serving more than 3.4 million patients.
• Supporting more than 3,000 service delivery sites in rural communities directly providing naloxone to the community.

Rural maternal health care

• Providing prenatal care to more than 110,000 patients per year in rural health centers.
• Supporting more than 26,000 pregnant and new moms in rural communities receiving community-based support—from diapers to transportation needs.
• Making voluntary home visiting services available to support pregnant and new moms with child development milestones and other critical needs in more than 600 rural counties.
• Supporting newborn screening across rural communities to ensure early identification of serious health conditions.
• Providing nearly 21,000 pregnant and new moms in rural communities with health and social service support through the HRSA-funded Rural Maternity and Obstetrics Management Strategies program since fiscal year 2021.

Rural HIV care

• Providing nearly 20,000 people with HIV care and treatment in 2022 through HRSA-supported rural providers.
• Helping more than 90% of clients in rural care settings reach viral suppression, meaning they cannot sexually transmit HIV to their partner and can live longer and healthier lives.

Sustaining rural health care services

• Providing more than 150 rural hospitals with high-touch, extensive technical assistance to assess and improve their economic viability and help them remain open.

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