Telehealth Centers of Excellence
The eligible applicants for this funding opportunity are public academic medical centers located in states with high chronic disease prevalence, high poverty rates, and a large percentage of medically underserved areas. For the purposes of this funding notice, limited competition eligible applicants are currently participating in the Telehealth Center of Excellence program and are located in a state where the chronic disease prevalence among Medicare beneficiaries is equal to or above the national prevalence for at least three of the following chronic conditions (cms.gov portal): • High Blood Pressure/Hypertension • Heart Disease • Cancer • Stroke • Diabetes • Chronic Kidney Disease The data file can be found on the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid website, Medicare Chronic Conditions Dashboard. High Poverty Rates – Applicants are located in a state with a Federal Medical Assistance Percentage (FMAP) at or above 65.0 percent. The 2021 FMAP percentages can be found at: FAS FMAP. Medically Underserved Areas – Applicants are located in states where at least 85 percent of the counties (either the entire county or a smaller division within the county) have been designated as a medically underserved area (MUA). More information about MUAs, including analyzers can be found at MUA Find. Rurality – Applicants may be located in an urban area but must provide telehealth services to rural areas in applicant’s state in order to receive funding. Applicants must include a list of rural health care facilities in state where telehealth services are currently provided. To determine whether the facility is located in a rural area see: Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer. The applicant organization may be located in a rural or urban area, but must have demonstrated experience serving, or the capacity to serve, rural underserved populations. Applicants should list the locations that will be served and identify rural. Please include the rural census tract(s) in the Project Abstract. The applicant organization should also describe their experience and/or capacity serving rural populations in the Project Abstract section of the application. It is important that applicants list the rural locations (or rural census tract(s) if the county is partially rural) that will be served through their proposed projects, as this will be one of the factors