House Health Care hears overview of Rural Health Transformation Fund; officials flag limits on housing and salary use

Jill Mazza Olsen, Medicaid and Health Systems Director, briefed the House Health Care committee on January 7 about Vermont’s application to the federal Rural Health Transformation (RHT) Fund, describing the award, allowable uses and next steps. "The goal of CMS was to strengthen rural access," Mazza Olsen said, and she described the RHT program as a large, time‑limited federal opportunity to modernize rural health systems.

Mazza Olsen told the committee the RHT program is a multibillion‑dollar CMS initiative and that "we did get an award of about $195 million," noting the award placed Vermont near the per‑state benchmark used in scoring. She said the program’s Notice of Funding Opportunity limits how the money can be used: funds generally cannot supplant the state budget, cannot pay for services that are otherwise billable under Medicaid or Medicare, and may not be used for major facility construction. "We can't use these dollars for [the state] portion of a match," Mazza Olsen said, and "we can't use these for otherwise billable services."

Why it matters: the RHT Fund (included in HR1) is intended to help states address rural workforce,…