Arkansas Awarded $209 Million for FY26 through President Trump’s Rural Health Transformation Program

LITTLE ROCK, Ark. - Governor Sarah Huckabee Sanders today announced that Arkansas has received $208,779,396 for Fiscal Year 2026 to strengthen rural health through President Trump's Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP), established by the President's One, Big, Beautiful Bill. Governor Sanders and the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration (DFA) submitted the state's application for funding on October 31.

"Today's announcement shows that President Trump and his administration place a priority on improving rural health and Making America Healthy Again," said Governor Sanders. "Our state went above and beyond in the application process to secure an outsized portion of the funds available through the Rural Health Transformation Program because we know that Arkansas' smaller communities deserve just as much support as any other region of our state. I'm excited to get to work quickly on Arkansas' innovative approach to this program and deliver the care our people deserve."

Through the Rural Health Transformation Program, CMS will distribute a total of $50 billion to all 50 states over the next five years, focused on strengthening rural healthcare. The amounts announced today by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, including Arkansas' $208,779,396 award, are the first-year, initial awards. Additional awards out of the $50 billion total fund will be announced in future rounds.

Arkansas' application incorporated feedback from stakeholders across the state, including physicians, nurses, pharmacists, hospitals, and other healthcare providers, as well as higher education institutions and community-based non-profits. Governor Sanders also established an online portal where more than 300 ideas for uses of the funding were submitted from across the state. Members of the Arkansas General Assembly provided feedback throughout the development of the state's application.

The state's application focused on four overarching initiatives:

• Healthy Eating, Active Recreation, and Transformation (HEART), a program focused on improving health outcomes and access to preventative care by creating a coordinated, community-driven approach to nutrition, physical activity, and chronic disease management.
• Promoting Access Coordination and Transformation (PACT), which integrates specialty care, preventative screenings, telehealth, and trauma-ready services into rural communities while fostering locally-driven clinically integrated networks to improve efficiency, data sharing, and regional collaboration.
• Recruitment Innovation Skills and Education for Arkansas (RISE AR), which strengthens the rural healthcare workforce through expanded physician residencies and other clinical training programs, provides incentives to recruit and retain healthcare professionals in rural Arkansas, and provides training to ensure leaders and board members of local hospitals and clinics are prepared for the transformation required in rural healthcare.
• Telehealth Health Monitoring and Response Innovation for Vital Expansion (THRIVE), which will leverage AI to provide coordinated patient records across delivery systems and fund telehealth platforms, technology-enabled monitoring for chronic diseases, such as diabetes and high blood pressure, and the modernization of emergency medical transport and services.

Funding amounts for each specific initiative will be announced at a later date.

Governor Sanders has supported several priorities to improve the health of Arkansans, including signing the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act earlier this year, directing $45 million to promote maternal health. Additionally, as part of her comprehensive strategy to combat food insecurity, she signed SB59 this past legislative session, requiring all Arkansas public schools to provide one free breakfast to students per school day, regardless of their federal eligibility for free meals, and, earlier this summer, Governor Sanders announced the launch of a farm-to-school pilot program, created by her faith-based initiatives office to provide students with fresh, nutritious produce while at school.

Additionally, Governor Sanders worked to ban taxpayer-funded soft drinks and candy from the state's food stamp program and remove cell phones, bell-to-bell, in every Arkansas school. Governor Sanders and her husband, Bryan, also established the Natural State Initiative at the beginning of her administration to promote Arkansas' outdoor recreation industry and get kids off screens and outdoors.

Arkansas' application to CMS for the Rural Health Transformation Program can be downloaded here.

The full list of CMS awards can be found here.

###