Governor Reeves Announces 60 Rural Health Transformation Program Awards Totaling $32.6 Million

JACKSON, Miss . - Governor Tate Reeves today announced 60 awards totaling $32,606,496.32 through the Mississippi Rural Health Transformation Program. The awards are part of Mississippi's $205.9 million first-year implementation budget and follow previously announced first-year awards of more than $104.1 million. These awards will help modernize, strengthen and transform healthcare in rural communities across the state.

"This is another really important round of awards," said Governor Tate Reeves. "The investments we're making today will help Mississippi train, recruit and retain the health care professionals our rural communities need and help close gaps in mental health care by strengthening our state's Psychiatric Emergency Services. We set out to transform health care across our state, and that's what we're doing. These investments will help Mississippi families get the care they deserve closer to home and strengthen health care for generations to come. Thank you to President Trump, Secretary Kennedy and Administrator Oz for their partnership in improving health care for Mississippi and her people. It's another great day for Mississippi."

"The Trump Administration's Rural Health Transformation Program is helping states like Mississippi develop innovative, locally driven solutions to improve rural Americans' access to high-quality care," said CMS Administrator Dr. Mehmet Oz. "These grant awards demonstrate how this historic investment is empowering rural communities to strengthen their health systems, put patients first, and bring better care closer to home."

The awards Governor Reeves announced today represent the continuation of Mississippi's work in Year One of a five-year transformation of rural healthcare in Mississippi.

In October, Mississippi is launching additional funding opportunities focused on innovative ways to close gaps in rural care and assisting small rural providers in modernizing the electronic health record systems they rely on every day. Monitor https://mississippirhtp.com for information on webinars and application opportunities.

The awards announced by Governor Reeves include:

Workforce Recruitment and Sustainable Ecosystem Development
1. Tippah County Hospital - Tippah County - $267,954.00 - To recruit and retain a full-time primary care physician.

2. Tate County Hospital - Tate County - $300,000.00 - To recruit and retain a broad range of healthcare professionals needed to sustain essential services and expand access to care in Tate County and the surrounding rural service area.

3. Magnolia Regional Health Center EMS - Alcorn County - $100,000.00 - To implement a non-cash, competency-based recruitment and retention strategy centered on nationally recognized critical care education.

4. Peak Physical Therapy - Jones County - $215,000.00 - To recruit, onboard, and retain two physical therapists and one physical therapist assistant.

5. Natchez Hospital Company LLC, d.b.a. Merit Health Natchez - Adams County - $405,000.00 - To prioritize recruitment of physicians in nine critical specialties: Cardiology, Radiology, Urology, Family Medicine with OB, Family Medicine, OB-GYN, Orthopedic Surgery, Otolaryngology, Pediatrics.

6. Merit Health River Region - Warren County - $263,000.00 - To support four specialty physician searches, rural RN recruitment events, employer-paid nursing certifications, and related workforce recruitment and development activities.

7. South MS State Hospital - Lamar County - $12,000.00 - To purchase simulation equipment that will establish a comprehensive Simulation-Based Clinical Skills Training Initiative.

8. North Mississippi Primary Health Care, Inc. - Tippah and Benton Counties - $489,750.00 - To recruit and retain licensed providers in the three disciplines where its service-area shortages are most severe and best documented.

9. Premier Medical Group of Mississippi, LLC - Attala County - $394,164.00 - To recruit and retain five healthcare professionals who will provide services to patients in rural central Mississippi.

10. MSE Behavioral & Mental Health Services - Lowndes County - $115,000.00 - To recruit and retain one full-time Licensed Clinical Social Worker (LCSW).

11. Mississippi Delta Community College - Sunflower County - $110,000.00 - To purchase a life-sized 3D anatomy visualization and virtual dissection system benefiting rural students pursuing nursing and allied health careers across its seven-county service area.

12. Southeast Mississippi Rural Health Initiative, Inc. - Forrest, Pearl River, Lamar, Perry and Covington Counties - $948,790.00 - To recruit and retain a multidisciplinary healthcare workforce serving rural and underserved communities throughout southeast Mississippi.

13. Progressive Health of Houston - Chickasaw County - $660,500.00 - To recruit and retain rural healthcare professionals.

14. Amite County Medical Services, Inc. - Amite County - $236,449.00 - To target healthcare professionals who are essential to maintaining comprehensive, accessible care for residents of rural Amite and Pike counties.

15. Copiah County Medical Center - Copiah County - $115,741.92 - To recruit and retain Family Medicine physicians.

16. Delta Health System - Washington County - $145,000.00 - To modernize workforce infrastructure for approximately 647 employees in Greenville and the broader rural Mississippi Delta, particularly nursing, advanced practice, and allied health professionals critical to patient care.

17. Yalobusha General Hospital - Yalobusha County - $95,000.00 - To recruit and retain a full-time physician to stabilize the continuum of care in Yalobusha County.

18. George County Hospital DBA Greene County Hospital - Greene County - $400,000.00 - To recruit and retain mid-level providers.

19. Claiborne County Hospital d/b/a Claiborne County Medical Center - Claiborne County - $783,692.00 - To recruit and retain full-time healthcare professionals in order to maintain continuous hospital operations and access to care.

20. Franklin County Memorial Hospital - Franklin County - $150,000.00 - To support degree advancement, professional certifications, specialty and simulation-based training, cybersecurity, behavioral health, emergency preparedness, and continuing education for clinical, technical, and administrative staff.

Secondary Education Medical Career Outreach
1. Millsaps Career and Technology Center at Starkville High School - Oktibbeha County - $27,835.34 - To expand opportunities for students to explore and prepare for careers in healthcare, while also increasing health education and awareness throughout the community.

2. Mississippi Center for Advancement of Prehospital Medicine - Rankin County - $375,000.00 - To expand EMT education for 100 participants statewide.

3. Grenada School District - Grenada County - $260,000.00 - To implement a hospital-connected rural healthcare career pathway designed to assist secondary students with career awareness and exploration.

4. Behavioral Solutions of Mississippi - Lauderdale and Scott Counties - $350,000.00 - To strengthen the recruitment, training, retention, and deployment of qualified behavioral health professionals while expanding access to services.
Preceptor Expansion
1. Tate County Hospital - Tate County - $50,000.00 - To strengthen the rural healthcare workforce pipeline in Tate County and surrounding rural communities in North Mississippi.

2. Brown Behavioral Health Services - DeSoto County - $448,140.00 - To build durable clinical teaching capacity across North Mississippi.

3. Phyfer Eye Care, PC DBA Brooks Eye Center and Optical - Lowndes County - $13,200.00 - To formally compensate the three optometrists who train fourth-year Doctor of Optometry interns from Southern College of Optometry (SCO).

4. HHH Foundation - Monroe County - $250,000.00 - To increase clinical training capacity, strengthen healthcare workforce pathways, and improve the long-term supply of healthcare professionals serving Aberdeen, Monroe County.

5. Access Family Health Services, Inc. - Lee, Monroe, Itawamba and Chickasaw Counties - $59,650.00 - To create a Preceptor Expansion Initiative designed to strengthen clinical training capacity and create a more sustainable healthcare workforce pipeline in rural northeast Mississippi.

6. Baptist Memorial Hospital-Yazoo, Inc. - Yazoo, Leake, Calhoun, Attala and Scott Counties - $549,440.00 - To increase physician-preceptor capacity and improve access to care.

7. Mississippi Center for Advancement of Prehospital Medicine - Rankin County - $330,000.00 - To expand the clinical and field education capacity required to prepare Mississippi's future paramedic workforce.

8. Singing River Health System - Jackson County - $180,000.00 - To expand the RN Clinical Coach structure needed to support the M-CARE LPN-to-RN Apprenticeship.

9. University of Mississippi - Lafayette County - $302,479.00 - To recruit, train, certify, and support pharmacists who serve as preceptors in rural and underserved communities across Mississippi.

10. Northeast Mental Health-Mental Retardation Commission d.b.a. LIFECORE Health Group - Lee County - $7,600.00 - To strengthen and sustain the behavioral workforce serving rural northeastern Mississippi. The purpose is to retain and support physician preceptors who provide clinical supervision and mentorship required for advanced practice providers.

11. Progressive Health of Houston - Chickasaw County - $59,484.00 - To transform an experienced but informally structured clinical mentoring environment into a certified, institutionalized rural clinical training program with three core components: preceptor certification, affiliation agreement infrastructure, and rotation hosting.

12. Jones College - Jones County - $770,000.00 - To recruit and train at least 150 multidisciplinary healthcare professionals as preceptors, benefiting students, employers, and rural communities across eight south-central Mississippi counties.

Earn While You Learn
1. Baptist Memorial Hospital-Oktibbeha - Oktibbeha County - $515,000.00 - To implement a coordinated workforce strategy that includes targeted recruitment, enhanced onboarding, credentialing support, professional development, leadership training, retention incentives, and structured career ladders.

2. Helton Family Dental Care, PA - Monroe County - $45,733.38 - To support the education, rural clinical training, credential attainment, and workforce entry of an identified fourth-year Doctor of Dental Medicine (DMD) student.

3. Progressive Health of Houston - Chickasaw County - $72,936.00 - To target two rural healthcare professional populations facing persistent access and financial barriers to workforce entry: Licensed Practical Nurses (LPNs) seeking to advance to Registered Nurse (RN) licensure through an LPN-to-RN bridge program.

4. Jefferson County Nursing Home - Jefferson County - $181,000.00 - To provide approximately 15 underserved rural residents and healthcare workers with paid pathways to CNA, LPN, and RN credentials while addressing severe staffing shortages in southwest Mississippi.

5. Memorial Health System - Harrison County - $219,120.00 - To work with Mississippi Gulf Coast Community College to provide eight participants with a paid pathway into obstetric surgical technology careers while addressing critical workforce shortages across rural and medically underserved coastal Mississippi.

6. East Mississippi Community College - Lowndes and Kemper Counties - $515,257.86 - To launch a high-impact evening and weekend training model for both Practical Nursing (PN) and associate degree Nursing (ADN) programs at the Golden Triangle campus.

7. Kinder Mind - George and Jefferson Counties - $200,000.00 - To provide 10 social work students with stipend-supported training positions to expand the behavioral health workforce serving rural and underserved communities in South Mississippi.

8. Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center - Coahoma County - $581,813.70 - To implement a regional Earn While You Learn (EWYL) nursing workforce initiative in partnership with Aaron E. Henry Community Health Services Center, Inc. (AEH), Coahoma Community College and Mississippi Delta Community College.

9. IM&PC - Union and Lee Counties - $182,000.00 - A one-year Earn While You Learn project to support current employees and improve healthcare access across seven rural counties in Northeast Mississippi.

10. Delta Health Transformation Council, Inc. - Washington County - $291,000.00 - To create a regional Earn While You Learn initiative to address persistent healthcare workforce shortages across the rural Mississippi Delta.

11. Itawamba Community College - Itawamba County - $75,000.00 - To remove the cost barrier to entering emergency medical services in rural northeast Mississippi.

12. Singing River Health System - Jackson County - $613,584.80 - To launch a new Registered Nurse (RN) Apprenticeship program to address critical shortages.

13. George County Hospital - George County - $125,000.00 - To train two employed CRNAs in pain management to expand access to specialized services for rural populations across George, Greene and Stone counties.

14. South Central Regional Medical Center - Jones, Simpson, Smith and Covington Counties - $841,500.00 - To target rural residents and incumbent staff across Jones, Simpson, Smith and Covington counties who are pursuing nursing or EMS credentials.

15. Delta State University - Bolivar County - $1,082,488.82 - To strengthen Mississippi's rural nursing workforce by creating an accessible pathway for students.

16. Forrest County General Hospital - Forrest County - $1,257,560.00 - To establish Mississippi's first "Care Connection Center," embedded in its flagship Forrest General Hospital, serving a 19-county area in Southern Mississippi.

17. King's Daughters Medical Center - Copiah County - $540,000.00 - To create an Earn and Learn Initiative designed to help qualified students remain in healthcare education, complete their credentials, and transition into employment.

18. Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center - Coahoma County - $88,358.00 - To implement an Earn While You Learn allied health workforce expansion project in partnership with Singing River Healthcare Academy.

19. Northwest Mississippi Regional Medical Center - Coahoma County - $279,279.50 - To strengthen rural imaging workforce capacity for Clarksdale, Coahoma County and surrounding Mississippi Delta communities.

20. Aaron E. Henry Community Health Services Center, Inc. - Coahoma County - $669,093.00 - To expand a successful Community Health Worker (CHW) training program across rural Mississippi.

21. Delta Health Center, Inc. - Washington County - $674,870.00 - To recruit, train, and employ a Digital CHW workforce for Delta Health Center (DHC).

Psychiatric Emergency Services
1. Merit Health Central/Jackson MHA, LLC - Hinds County - $4,500,000.00 - To establish a dedicated EmPATH (Emergency Psychiatric Assessment, Treatment, and Healing) Unit adjacent to the hospital's Emergency Department to address Mississippi's behavioral health service gaps and reduce prolonged ED boarding, unnecessary psychiatric admissions and inappropriate jail placements.

2. Memorial Hospital at Gulfport - Harrison County - $4,496,000.00 - To establish a 12-recliner EmPATH Unit adjacent to the Emergency Department at Memorial Health Gulfport to address South Mississippi's growing behavioral health crisis needs.

3. University of Mississippi Medical Center Greenwood Hospital - Leflore County - $4,320,032.00 - To establish a dedicated EmPATH Unit adjacent to the hospital's Emergency Department to address Mississippi's behavioral health service gaps.

The Rural Health Transformation Program is supported by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as part of a financial assistance award totaling $205,990,180.16, with 99.96% funded by CMS/HHS ($205,907,220.16) and 0.04% funded by non-government sources ($82,960).​

The contents are those of the author(s) and do not necessarily represent the official views of, nor an endorsement, by CMS/HHS, or the U.S. Government.

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