Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) program | HRSA 25 007

Opportunity Information: Apply for HRSA 25 007

The Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) program is a Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) discretionary grant opportunity designed to strengthen rural health care access by helping organizations launch new, sustainable physician residency programs in rural communities. The core idea is to grow the rural physician pipeline by increasing the number of doctors who train in rural settings, since physicians who complete substantial training in rural areas are more likely to practice there long-term. RRPD is specifically intended to address persistent physician workforce shortages in rural America by supporting the start-up and early development work needed to create residency training that can later be maintained through stable, ongoing financing.

This program funds the planning and development of rural residency programs that must ultimately achieve Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education (ACGME) accreditation. In this notice of funding opportunity, a rural residency program is defined as an accredited physician residency program that trains residents at clinical sites physically located in a rural area (as defined by HRSA's Federal Office of Rural Health Policy) for more than 50 percent of the total residency time, and that is intentionally focused on producing physicians who will practice in rural communities. The grant is positioned as start-up funding rather than permanent operating support, with an emphasis on building programs that can continue over the long term through viable and stable funding mechanisms such as Medicare and Medicaid graduate medical education payments and other public or private sources.

RRPD is limited to certain qualifying medical specialties that are especially important for rural communities: family medicine, internal medicine, preventive medicine, psychiatry, general surgery, and obstetrics and gynecology. To be considered responsive and eligible for funding, an applicant must propose a new rural residency program in one of these specialties. For the purposes of this competition, "new" includes two main scenarios: a program seeking ACGME accreditation for the first time, or an existing residency program seeking a permanent complement increase to train additional residents at new rural training site(s) as part of a rural track program (RTP). However, the program draws clear boundaries around what does not count as new. Programs are not considered new if they have already received accreditation or a permanent complement increase for the proposed rural residency program prior to the application due date, or if they are simply trying to increase resident full-time equivalents at an already existing RTP site without adding a new rural training site.

Eligible applicants are domestic organizations, meaning entities located in the 50 states, the District of Columbia, Puerto Rico, and U.S. territories and affiliated jurisdictions listed in the notice (including Guam, the U.S. Virgin Islands, American Samoa, the Northern Mariana Islands, and certain freely associated states). Organizations that may apply include public or private institutions of higher education participating as part of a graduate medical education consortium (including schools of allopathic medicine, schools of osteopathic medicine, and Historically Black Colleges and Universities), rural hospitals, rural community-based ambulatory patient care centers such as Rural Health Clinics, and Native American tribal governments and tribal organizations. Individuals are not eligible to apply under this funding opportunity.

Key funding details include an opportunity number of HRSA-25-007 under CFDA 93.155. HRSA expects to make about 15 awards, with an award ceiling of $750,000. The application closing date listed is April 10, 2025. Overall, RRPD is aimed at helping rural communities and their training partners do the upfront work of building accredited, rural-based residency training capacity that lasts, expands the rural physician workforce, and improves access to essential health services across multiple high-need specialties.

• The Health Resources and Services Administration in the health sector is offering a public funding opportunity titled "Rural Residency Planning and Development (RRPD) program" and is now available to receive applicants.
• Interested and eligible applicants and submit their applications by referencing the CFDA number(s): 93.155.
• This funding opportunity was created on 2025-01-10.
• Applicants must submit their applications by 2025-04-10. (Agency may still review applications by suitable applicants for the remaining/unused allocated funding in 2026.)
• Each selected applicant is eligible to receive up to $750,000.00 in funding.
• The number of recipients for this funding is limited to 15 candidate(s).
• Eligible applicants include: Native American tribal governments (Federally recognized), Native American tribal organizations (other than Federally recognized tribal governments), Private institutions of higher education, Others.

Apply for HRSA 25 007

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