Rural Health Transformation Program · State Procurement & Funding Profile
Arkansas's approximately $208.8M Rural Health Transformation Program award — the “Healthy. Connected. Local” plan, its four initiative tracks, live NOFOs, with a dated log of official activity for vendors, providers, and consultants tracking the program.
Arkansas’s official RHTP hub →
Arkansas's FY2026 allocation is approximately $208.8 million (reported by the state as roughly $209 million), its share of the federal $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program. CMS structures the program over five years; Arkansas's initiatives carry both Year-1 ceilings and larger five-year totals (its HEART pillar, for example, is about $27.6M in Year 1 against roughly $151.9M over five years), and — per CMS rules — every Year-1 dollar must be obligated by October 30, 2026.
Arkansas runs its program — branded “Healthy. Connected. Local” — through the Arkansas Department of Health, with the Arkansas Department of Finance and Administration handling funding administration for tracks such as HEART. Program contact is adh.ruralhealth@arkansas.gov (applicants are also directed to Info@arkansasrhtp.com for application questions), and program information lives at the Arkansas RHTP site.
Arkansas structures its award into four named initiative tracks that together modernize the rural health system: PACT (Promoting Access, Coordination, and Transformation) for access, coordinated care, and clinically integrated networks; THRIVE (Telehealth, Health-Monitoring, and Response Innovation for Vital Expansion) for telehealth, remote patient monitoring, and EMS/emergency response; RISE AR (Recruitment, Innovation, Skills, and Education) for workforce and leadership; and HEART (Healthy Eating, Active Recreation, and Transformation) for prevention, nutrition, and chronic-disease work. No matching funds are required on these tracks.
Recurring focuses on record include EMS stabilization, rural maternal health, and data interoperability.
All four tracks are now in market. THRIVE ($55.6M) opened its application portal May 11, 2026, with dollars flowing from June. PACT opened June 8 with applications closing July 10 across its five sub-initiatives. RISE AR ran a June 22–July 24 window. HEART (up to $27.56M) opened June 29 with a deadline extended to August 7 (from July 31). The running record of every posting is in the dispatch list below.
The most recent hard deadline on the record is August 7, 2026 for HEART (extended from July 31); RISE AR closed July 24 and PACT closed July 10. Every Year-1 dollar must be obligated by October 30, 2026, and the NOFOs flag that a new SAM.gov registration can take up to eight weeks — a real planning constraint for these short windows. Current per-track dates surface first in the dated dispatches below and on the resources page.
The Rural Health Transformation Program was created by Section 71401 of the One Big Beautiful Bill Act (2025) and is administered federally by CMS. Arkansas administers its award through the Arkansas Department of Health (with the Department of Finance and Administration handling funding for tracks such as HEART) under its CMS-approved plan; every subaward carries standard federal grant requirements, including 2 CFR Part 200 capacity and an active SAM.gov UEI.
Eligibility runs on two tracks. Direct-to-state contracts go out competitively, where firms bid as prime contractors. Subawards flow to rural providers and partners — hospitals, FQHCs, community clinics, EMS agencies, pharmacies, licensed practitioners, behavioral health providers, and clinically integrated networks — and it is here that technology vendors and consultants most often engage as subcontractors or implementation partners. Arkansas's eligibility is unusually wide, especially on HEART, which also opens the door to state agencies, employers, schools, higher-ed and academic research partners, community and faith-based organizations, community health workers, and nonprofit or public entities serving rural Arkansas. All applicants must clear 2 CFR Part 200 capacity and hold an active SAM.gov UEI.
Chronology of official activity compiled from automated monitoring of state sources, with personal review and verification. Links to primary documents and related Tracker analysis.
Independent reference profile compiled and maintained by Civic Operator LLC from primary sources (CMS, Arkansas .gov program and procurement pages, the Governor's newsroom) and the Rural Health Transformation Grant Tracker. Official-source data and dispatch links refresh nightly; profiles are regenerated weekly from the latest reporting and changes reviewed before publication. Last reviewed 2026-07-30. · Methodology & sources · All states