California Receives 233.6 Million Dollars in Federal Rural Health Grants for Telehealth and Workforce

California has been awarded 233.6 million dollars in the first year of the federal Rural Health Transformation Program, according to the California Department of Health Care Access and Information. The award is funded entirely by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services. California's program, known as CalRHT, is organized around three areas: developing new care models for rural communities, expanding the rural health workforce, and upgrading technology including telehealth systems and data infrastructure.

Rural and frontier communities in California face significant barriers to care, including long distances to hospitals, shortages of primary care physicians, and limited access to specialists. The CalRHT program is intended to help the state address those gaps over a five-year period.

The Rural Health Transformation Program is a 50-billion-dollar, five-year federal initiative that distributes roughly 10 billion dollars per year to all 50 states. Funding is split between equal distribution across states and amounts allocated based on factors such as rurality and the strength of a state's proposed plan. California's 2026 award supports a program running through 2031.