How Florida Pharmacies Can Access Rural Health Transformation Program Initiative 12 Funding

The Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP, also referred to as the RHT Program) is a $50 billion federal initiative that sends funds to the states to help address rural healthcare gaps, running from 2026 to 2030. Each state decides how that money gets used: they identify their own gaps, build programs around those needs, and issue Requests for Proposals (RFPs) that local pharmacies and healthcare organizations can apply for directly. This can open up opportunities for your pharmacy to expand your scope of practice, deliver life-changing clinical care, and serve the community that relies on you most.

In this series of blogs, we'll be helping to break down upcoming pharmacy-related opportunities and what infrastructure you need to get grant-ready.

Florida RHTP, Bundle One
Who can apply: Rural pharmacies and healthcare organizations in Florida; 31 out of 67 counties are eligible.
Funding available: $60.5M (Year 1)
Application deadline: July 31, 2026
Apply directly here: MyFloridaMarketPlace, GO-15709

In rural Florida, the nearest specialist is often more than an hour away. The nearest pharmacy is usually a short drive. Florida's Rural Health Transformation Program was built to help bridge that gap, and one of its initiatives specifically funds clinical services inside rural pharmacies.

This is the most accessible Florida rural pharmacy grant currently available for pharmacies with clinical practices. The funding is eligible for a bundle of services that contains all five of the following components together, working as an integrated care continuum: Mobile Health, Community Paramedicine, Remote Patient Telemonitoring, On-Site Pharmacy/Retail Clinic, and Florida HIE Onboarding, outlined in more detail below.

What is the Florida RHTP funding for?

Florida issued separate RFAs for six different bundles under the RHTP, covering everything from healthcare workforce development to value-based care to rural clinics. Bundle One, the Preventive Care and Care-at-Home Bundle (GO-15709), focuses on pharmacies. Year 1 funding for the full bundle is $60.5 million, spread across five required components that every applicant or applicant group must cover together.

The Florida Agency for Health Care Administration (AHCA) designed the components as an integrated care continuum: mobile units find patients, paramedicine follows up at home, remote monitoring tracks chronic conditions between visits, the pharmacy delivers the clinical services, and HIE onboarding connects the data. A pharmacy can't apply for Initiative 12 alone: it's time to connect with members in your community to see how you can work together! Your pharmacy can either lead the full application and assemble the other partners, or join as the clinical partner under another organization's lead. Whichever path you choose, the five required components function as a single team.

Mobile Health ($20M)

Mobile health units visit patients at home to screen for chronic conditions, flag high-risk patients, and route them into the care system. Patients often get referred to their local pharmacist for a Medication Therapy Management (MTM) visit, a chronic disease counseling session, or a medication review. These clinical encounters are what the pharmacist conducts, documents, and bills under Initiative 12.

How MedMe helps

• Close the referral loop and appointment prep: Patient Concierge can help book referred patients, send out automated appointment reminders, and capture digital intake forms before their appointment.
• Instant record creation: Clinical Assistant's AI Scribe opens pre-populated templates so your first clinical encounter is fully documented, reportable, and aligned with state care coordination metrics.

Community Paramedicine ($18M)

Paramedics conduct home visits for recently discharged hospital patients or those with severe chronic conditions, checking adherence and explicitly referring patients to local pharmacists when medication gaps or safety risks are flagged.

How MedMe helps

• Streamlined post-discharge MTM: MedMe's AI Scribe documents and organizes notes from pharmacist consultations like blood pressure readings, current medications, and compliance gaps into a single, structured note template.
• Dual reporting outputs: While our AI assistants draft the clinical note in real time, they automatically suggest correct billing codes to help you get paid for your services. The platform also allows for export of the required care-coordination data to your paramedicine partner.

Remote Patient Telemonitoring ($14M)

Cellular-enabled health tools track patient vitals from home, allowing local pharmacists to actively monitor the continuous data stream, adjust care plans, and intervene before emergency room visits happen.

How MedMe helps

• Post-alert clinical documentation: After manually addressing a remote monitoring alert in your RPM dashboard, use MedMe to document the clinical encounter, intervention details, and resulting care plan adjustments.
• Defensible audit trails: MedMe's platform ensures that manual interventions and care plan modifications are recorded in structured, audit-ready clinical notes for state reporting requirements.

On-Site Pharmacy/Retail Clinic ($6M)

Initiative 12 funds the clinical software, billing workflows, point-of-care testing (POCT) equipment, and telehealth kiosks needed to run physical clinical services, such as diabetes, hypertension, and COPD management, inside the pharmacy.

Note on scope: Florida pharmacists can autonomously deliver MTM, CLIA-waived POCT, and immunizations. Acute care visits conducted through your on-site telehealth kiosk must be routed through a connected physician, Advanced Practice Registered Nurse (ARNP), or Physician's Assistant via a care-team model.

How MedMe helps

• Real-time documentation: The Clinical Assistant AI Scribe listens to the patient consultation and drafts formatted SOAP notes automatically, completing the record by the time the patient leaves.
• Outcomes reporting: Generates quick, aggregate reports tracking blood pressure control rates, HbA1c trends, and clinical encounter volumes to fulfill AHCA's strict quarterly data requirements.
• Unified billing and documentation: Telehealth consultations are conducted on a separate platform and then manually documented within MedMe. By capturing these encounter details and submitting medical billing through our unified dashboard, your team can manage all clinical records in one place.

Florida HIE Onboarding ($2.5M)

This is the mandatory data layer that securely connects all five care components together, ensuring that patient records from a paramedic visit, a mobile health screening, and a pharmacy MTM encounter are instantly visible to the entire care team.

How MedMe helps

• Interoperability-ready data infrastructure: MedMe connects to Health Information Exchanges (HIEs) and Qualified Health Information Networks (QHINs), both to pull a patient's clinical history in and to share the care your pharmacy delivers back out, using open healthcare standards.
• Reduces retrofit risk: By building structured documentation, reporting, and interoperability-ready data capture into the daily workflow, MedMe helps pharmacies avoid starting from scratch if they need to connect clinical data into external health information systems later.

Getting started with medical billing

The grant specifically covers clinical service infrastructure like software, POCT hardware, telehealth kiosks, and training. This is your chance to upgrade your systems, automate your workflows, and stand up medical billing to evolve your pharmacy's offerings and ability to serve the community, now and into the future. By the end of the 5-year period, the goal is to have the program running and generating revenue via medical billing directly.

Who is eligible for Florida RHTP Initiative 12?

1. Geography: Your pharmacy must be located in or actively serving one of Florida's 31 designated rural-eligible counties.

2. Licensing: You must hold an active Florida pharmacy license, a valid pharmacy permit, and maintain full HIPAA compliance. (Most independent pharmacies already have this completely covered.)

3. Clinical infrastructure: To participate in Initiative 12, whether you are leading the application or joining as a partner, your pharmacy must have software capable of handling structured patient documentation (SOAP notes), and the underlying data infrastructure to connect to Florida's HIE network.

Important telehealth clarification: Pharmacies do NOT need to offer or conduct virtual telehealth visits themselves to qualify. If you eventually choose to offer remote telehealth features, you can simply utilize a technology vendor as an integrated partner rather than trying to build a custom telehealth platform from scratch.

What clinical infrastructure does RHTP Initiative 12 require?

Initiative 12 focuses entirely on clinical delivery, documentation, and outcomes reporting. Your current Pharmacy Management System (like Liberty or Pioneer) is brilliant at dispensing medication efficiently, but it is not built to run a clinical medical practice.

MedMe isn't a replacement for your PMS; it is a clinical software layer that works right alongside it to add the exact infrastructure the grant demands: structured documentation, medical billing, scheduling, telehealth, outcomes reporting, and HIE-compatible data export.

Clinical readiness: MedMe vs. a traditional PMS

How can a Florida pharmacy apply for RHTP Initiative 12?

Regardless of the application path you choose, your pharmacy's core job remains the same: deliver clinical services, generate billable medical encounters, connect to the HIE, and report outcomes.

Path 1: Your pharmacy leads the bundle.

Your pharmacy submits the master application, takes ultimate responsibility for all five components, and contracts out the remaining pieces (e.g., partnering with a local EMS for paramedicine or an external vendor for mobile units).

• Requirements: At least 5 years of continuous operation as a licensed pharmacy in Florida, a valid permit in good standing, and at least one active location in an eligible rural area.
• The upside: Your pharmacy maintains complete control over program design, workflow integration, and fund allocation.

Path 2: Your pharmacy joins under another lead.

A Federally Qualified Health Center, Critical Access Hospital, or EMS agency submits the master application as the lead entity and names your pharmacy as their designated Initiative 12 provider.

• Requirements: Active Florida pharmacy license, valid permit, and full HIPAA compliance.
• The upside: A significantly lower administrative barrier to entry. The lead partner manages the massive application paperwork, while you focus purely on clinical delivery.

When to start

Bundle One closes July 31, 2026. That's the current deadline per GO-15709 in the MyFloridaMarketPlace vendor portal. AHCA is in a restricted communication period tied to the RFA release, so direct your questions to the published portal materials.

Year 1 funding covers August 1, 2026 through July 30, 2027.

Note: Even if you miss this specific summer cycle, this exact clinical infrastructure positions your pharmacy to successfully apply for all upcoming RHTP funding rounds.

Check the current RFA at vendor.myfloridamarketplace.com and confirm all requirements directly from the Initiative 12 Guidance Document before submitting.