The Moment for Mobile Healthcare is Now.

Why States Must Invest Rural Health Transformation Program Funds in Integrated Access to Care Initiatives  

Originally published on LinkedIn

As states plan their applications to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) for the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) this fall, we urge every governor to designate 5% of their state’s planned RHTP funding application to strengthen and expand integrated mobile healthcare initiatives. 

Our rural communities are America’s backbone, yet their healthcare infrastructure is nearing the point of no return. Hospitals are closing or reducing services, and millions of rural Americans face serious barriers to accessing care. With essential healthcare out of reach, otherwise minor health issues can escalate into expensive and even devastating emergencies. The alarming rates of preventable illnesses, tragic maternal and infant mortality figures, and weakening rural communities are at a crisis point—and we’re all paying for it.

More than 80 organizations from across sectors are now collaborating on Driving Health Forward, a national campaign to exponentially expand access to care through a powerful, proven solution: mobile healthcare. Mobile healthcare includes mobile clinics and vans, remote patient monitoring applications and devices, and of course telehealth services. It offers a high quality, low cost, and financially sustainable service delivery model that must be scaled to address unrelenting care access issues threatening far too many rural communities. Mobile healthcare also embraces a greater use of technology to bridge the enormous distances that separate rural people and families from their health care practitioners and facilities.     

We must seize this transformational opportunity to reimagine a sustainable rural health care delivery model grounded in prevention, early detection and treatment.

Mobile Healthcare–A High Quality, Low Cost, Financially Sustainable Solution for States

Mobile healthcare excels in many of the RHTP’s key elements–especially promoting evidence-based, measurable interventions for prevention and chronic disease management. Mobile healthcare perfectly fits this goal by bringing preventive services directly to individuals and families where they live, gather, and work. It can provide on-the-spot screenings for common conditions like high blood pressure and diabetes. It can also connect patients to the larger healthcare system, helping them find a permanent primary care provider, or enroll in a chronic disease management program.  Consider the Mobile Integrated Healthcare Network in rural Missouri, where community paramedics conduct regular home visits with high-risk patients who lack primary care access, even providing mobile hotspots for telehealth sessions. Or the Wayne Health Mobile Unit in Michigan, which proactively brings essential preventative screenings, health education, and other resources directly to underserved communities. 

Access to consistent preventive care also lowers overall healthcare costs by decreasing avoidable emergency department visits and hospitalizations–a vital way to save state Medicaid programs money. A 2023 analysis in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine found an average 44% reduction in the risk of emergency department visits and a 54% reduction in the risk of hospital admission directly attributable to mobile health interventions. Furthermore, a 2020 study of 96 mobile clinic programs across Texas, North Carolina, Georgia, and Florida found that the cost per patient visit was significantly lower than that of fixed clinic services. In practice, mobile healthcare is both a compassionate response to known community needs and good financial common sense.

Mobile Healthcare–A Five-Year Strategic Investment Opportunity for States

RHTP provides a five-year planning, design, funding, and operational cycle that is essential for building the rural health care system of the future. This multi-year horizon is also ideal for states to make a strategic investment in mobile healthcare aimed at accelerating meaningful systems change in rural communities.  

When making this investment in mobile healthcare, we encourage every governor to adopt these two important planning assumptions:    

1. To incentivize the growth of the mobile healthcare sector, designated RHTP funds should be available to current and new mobile healthcare programs for both capital (i.e., mobile health vehicles, portable diagnostic equipment, GPS satellite, EMR, and AI technologies) and operating expenses (i.e., clinical and community health workforce salaries, medical supplies, fuel, and recurring maintenance and repair); and    

2. To realize a return on investment from designated RHTP funds, any organization seeking to establish new or expanded mobile healthcare programs should be required to submit a five-year business planning roadmap that outlines an achievable path to financial sustainability.

Mobile Healthcare–The Time for Major Investment is Now

For individual states, RHTP is a once-in-a-generation funding opportunity to drive healthcare transformation in rural America. There are numerous approaches, options, and strategies to consider, yet time is of the essence. There are only four months left before individual states are required to submit their RHTP applications to CMS.  And the stakes are even higher for individuals and families living in rural communities with little or no access to care.    

As a proven solution for access to care problems, mobile healthcare should be a foundational element of every state’s RHTP plan. It is a high quality, low cost, financially sustainable model. And it generates a tangible return on investment via dramatically improved health outcomes and real cost savings within state Medicaid programs.

For these reasons and many more, we urge every governor to prioritize integrated mobile healthcare initiatives in their state’s RHTP application to CMS.  

(Learn more about the Driving Health Forward campaign and how you can join: https://www.drivinghealthforward.org/)

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