Rural Health Funding Opportunity – Expanding Nutrition Services & Rural Health Residency Access

Food As Medicine

Beginning in 1965, Dr. Jack Geiger helped found one of our nation’s first community health centers in rural Mississippi Delta. To combat the malnourishment and food insecurity of his impoverished patients, Dr. Geiger began writing “prescriptions” for healthy food and paid for the food with the pharmacy budget. When questioned how Dr. Geiger justified spending money marked for “medical purposes” only, Geiger replied: “The last time I looked in my textbooks, the specific therapy for malnutrition was food.”[1]

The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) announced a grant notice for health center programs with an active H80 award (Community Health Centers, Migrant Health Centers, Health Care for the Homeless, and Public Housing Primary Care) to increase access to nutrition services. The Fiscal Year 2026 Expanding Nutrition Services (https://www.grants.gov/search-results-detail/361800) grant is forecasted to launched Apr 21, 2026, and will close June 09, 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time.

To treat the root causes of illness and chronic morbidity, food prescriptions as part of “Food as Medicine” initiatives provide fresh produce and healthy groceries for individuals with diet-related chronic conditions like diabetes or heart disease. Nutrition services can help to prevent, manage, and treat diseases and conditions through nutritional and food-based interventions. Longitudinal research shows a correlation between nutritional coaching and food supply with improved psychosocial, psychological, and clinical outcomes among adults with chronic conditions [2]

Successful programs integrate all community partnerships, clinicians, health coaches, community-based organizations, and farmers. Use of funding must demonstrate increases in nutrition services per patients and/or visits.

Fiscal Year 2026 Expanding Nutrition Services – Grant Details

• Estimated Post Date: April 21, 2026
• Estimated Application Due Date: June 9, 2026
• Estimated Award Date: September 1, 2026

Rural Residency

Medical training in rural areas, enrolling students with rural backgrounds, and accessible continuing education opportunities are associated with increased rural placement of graduating clinicians.[3]

The HRSA announced a grant notice for accredited physician residency programs who train residents in clinical training sites that are physically located in a rural area as defined by HRSA’s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP) for greater than 50 percent of their total time in residency. The Fiscal Year 2026 Rural Residency Planning and Development Program (https://simpler.grants.gov/opportunity/4b8c6fc1-6503-4e61-b939-bcfd0df080b6) grant is forecasted to launched Apr 21, 2026, and will close May 22, 2026 at 11:59 PM Eastern Time.

The HRSA Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) program is designed to support developing new, accredited, sustainable rural residency programs to address physician shortages. The RRPD program provides start-up funding to create new rural residency programs in qualifying medical specialties. Long-term sustainability funding must come from viable and stable sources, such as Medicare, Medicaid, and other public or private sources. Qualifying medical specialties are:

• Family medicine
• Internal medicine
• Preventive medicine
• Psychiatry
• General surgery
• Obstetrics and gynecology

Rural Residency Planning and Development Program – Grant Details

• Estimated Post Date: April 21, 2026
• Estimated Application Due Date: May 22, 2026
• Estimated Award Date: July 1, 2026

We Are Here to Help

SunHawk provides expertise in readiness reviews and assists rural healthcare providers in successful grant and program development.

Partner with SunHawk to:

• Conduct grant and program application readiness review
• Evaluate HRSA value-based care readiness
• Design ACO infrastructure and process flows
• Analyze revenue cycles, including identifying leakage
• Assess Electronic Health Record (EHR) compliance
• Identify high-volume patients for CMS benchmarking categories
• Detect missed coding opportunities
• Identify and engage unattached patients

[1] Larry Cuban World Press, Narrow Thinking about Health and Schools (https://larrycuban.wordpress.com/2011/08/04/narrow-thinking-about-health-and-schools), August 4, 2011

[2] Zimmer R, Abdelfattah L, Shenberger D, Crotts C, Birken S, Hanchate A. Impacts of a Produce Prescription Program on Food Security, Diet Quality, and Psychosocial Health of Adults with Medicaid and Chronic Health Conditions: A 12-Month Longitudinal Evaluation. J Gen Intern Med. 2026 Apr 14. doi: 10.1007/s11606-026-10390-x. Epub ahead of print. PMID: 41979725.

[3] Increasing Access to Health Workers in Remote and Rural Areas Through Improved Retention: Global Policy Recommendations. Geneva: World Health Organization; 2010 https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/books/NBK138626/

Brigita Landstrom, MHS, CPHQ, CAS
Director
SunHawk Consulting

Brigita Fody Landstrom has 25 years of Medicare/Medicaid managed care, Community Health Center Quality, and large hospital and healthcare systems experience. Passionate about population health, Brigita has dedicated her career to serving the health of communities, with extra attention on traditionally marginalized populations. Brigita has worked with leaders and regulators within multiple market segments on data-driven systems improvement, large-scale health program implementation, grant writing, risk contracting, budget development, policy development, and staff training and support.

Sailaja Prakriya
Director
SunHawk Consulting

Sailaja Prakriya is a healthcare analytics and transformation leader with more than 20 years of experience helping payer, provider, and government healthcare organizations improve operational performance, financial outcomes, and population health through data-driven strategies. She specializes in healthcare analytics strategy, revenue cycle performance analytics, and value-based care transformation, helping organizations translate complex healthcare data into actionable insights that drive measurable improvement.