By: Julie O’Donoghue | Louisiana Illuminator
Louisiana will leverage an anticipated $1 billion in federal funding for rural health care over the next five years by expanding existing training programs and creating new financial incentives for medical professionals to work in rural communities.
President Donald Trump’s administration announced this week Louisiana will receive $208 million in 2026 from the massive $50 billion federal rural health fund that will be distributed over the next five years. The amount of money each state receives will be recalculated annually until the $50 billion is exhausted in 2030.
Louisiana officials said this initial allocation indicates the support the state can expect to garner in future years. Assuming its $208 million allocation continues, Louisiana should receive more than $1 billion for rural health care support over the five-year life of the fund, Louisiana Health Secretary Bruce Greenstein said Friday in an interview.
The state plans to use some of its money to add slots to health care training and degree programs that already exist at Louisiana public universities and colleges. The additional spots would be prioritized for students who show an interest in working in rural areas.
Greenstein held out a mental health counseling program at Northwestern State University as an example of a degree track that could be expanded with the rural health funds. He said the university has more qualified candidates applying to that program than it can afford to train currently.
The state is also looking to expand the Health Care Employment Reinvestment Opportunity (HERO) program, which leverages public money to attract private funding for scholarships given to health care students who agree to work in underserved communities. A new rural version of this initiative is likely to be set up with the money, Greenstein said.
Louisiana is also looking to set up a rural clinician credit bank, where rural hospitals and other health care providers can draw down public funds in order to provide signing and retention bonuses for medical professionals. This would allow rural health care employers to compete with their urban and suburban counterparts, who have more resources to provide such incentives, Greenstein said.
The money may also go toward reestablishing a state income tax credit for rural health care professionals, according to Louisiana’s application for the rural health care funding submitted last year. Approximately 400 rural health care workers took advantage of a similar tax credit when it existed previously, according to the application.
Louisiana will also help rural hospitals purchase electronic health records systems with the money. Greenstein said this should improve access to care for people who need to see specialists. It will make it easier for rural hospital patients to have their cancer screenings, X-rays and other images transferred from their primary care provider to specialists at other hospital systems, for example.
Putting rural patients’ records into an electronic system will also make it much easier to collect data and identify trends in health care across the state. Louisiana will be able to better respond to its health care challenges when it has access to more accurate and better information about health care delivery, Greenstein said.
The rural health funding will also allow Louisiana to distribute wireless health care devices to more residents.
Patients with chronic conditions, such as chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or diabetes, would be able to take readings of their blood pressure, blood sugar and blood oxygen levels at home that could then be monitored by health care providers remotely.
This could help rural residents, who live farther away from medical facilities, when it’s necessary to see their health care providers in person and before their condition requires emergency services, Greenstein said.
The state will also use the federal money to partner with rural health care providers to launch nutrition programs called “food FARMacies.” Rural hospitals and other providers will be given the money to provide education on diet and disease prevention through food and meal planning. They will also be sites for direct access to fresh food through collaborations with local farmers, according to the state rural funding application.
The health department will be using some of Louisiana’s existing programs for nutrition and fitness the LSU Pennington Biomedical Research Center in Baton Rouge has already developed.
Jeff Reynolds, executive director of the Rural Hospital Coalition of Louisiana, said his organization is excited about the opportunities the funding will enable, particularly when it comes to luring more health care workers to rural institutions.
But health care experts have warned the federal government’s $50 billion rural health care fund will not be enough to make up for massive cuts to the national Medicaid program over the next decade. Those reductions, pushed by Trump, will disproportionately impact rural hospitals because their patients are more likely to have low incomes and rely on Medicaid for health insurance.