How Wisconsin Pharmacies Can Access Rural Health Transformation Program Funding Through Coordinating Care Partnership Grants
Wisconsin's RHTP offers $10M for care-coordination planning grants. Learn how pharmacies can apply, build partnerships, and get grant-ready with MedMe.
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.
Coordinating Care Across Wisconsin: Innovating Healthcare Through Partnership Grants
Who can apply: Wisconsin health service providers and community partners, including pharmacists and pharmacies, serving eligible rural or semi-rural areas outside Milwaukee County
Funding available: $10 million for the six-month planning period to start, with full award subject to CMS approval.
Application deadline: August 21, 2026 @ 11:59 CST
Applicant match: No match required
Apply directly here: Coordinating Care Across Wisconsin grant application
Rural Wisconsin residents face higher rates of chronic conditions like heart disease and diabetes, alongside worse behavioral health outcomes than their urban neighbors. Long travel distances and shortages in primary care, behavioral health, and dental care can make timely, connected care harder to reach. Rural pharmacies can help close these gaps. Patients may see a doctor a few times a year, but visit their pharmacy every month, giving pharmacists regular opportunities to identify barriers and keep patients connected to care.
Coordinating Care Across Wisconsin gives pharmacies a chance to build new or expanded partnerships that help patients manage medications, connect with local services, and stay engaged in care closer to home.
Who is eligible for Wisconsin's RHTP: Coordinating Care Across Wisconsin?
- Provider Type: You must be a health service provider, or a community partner of one. Pharmacists and pharmacies are named directly on Wisconsin's eligible applicant list, alongside hospitals, community health centers, EMS, local and Tribal health departments, and others
- Location: Applicants must serve eligible rural or semi-rural Wisconsin communities outside Milwaukee County.
- Note: Projects located and delivering services in rural counties (rather than semi-rural alone) receive an extra scoring weight
- Project Type: Your project must be a new or expanded service, partnership, or activity.
- Partnership: A pharmacy may apply directly, but applications are scored on the strength of new or expanded partnerships.
What is the Wisconsin RHTP funding for?
This five-year opportunity begins with a six-month planning grant. It gives pharmacies and their partners time to build a strong local care model before applying for the full award.
Wisconsin will score letters of application across three equally weighted areas. A strong application connects a clear local need, a thoughtful partnership model, and a realistic planning budget.
What Your Letter of Application Is Scored On
Use local data to show the care gap your partnership will address, the patients you will serve, and the outcomes you hope to improve.
Explain what is new or expanded about the partnership, what each organization will contribute, and how the model will bring care closer to home.
Show how the six-month planning budget will help your team build toward a sustainable four-year care model.
Wisconsin lists collaboration infrastructure, billing and fiscal infrastructure, technology for billing and tracking services, administrative support, training coordination, and evaluation as allowable planning expenses.
You do not need a finished program to apply. Whether your partnership is still taking shape or already has a strong concept, the six-month planning period is designed to help you turn that idea into a ready-to-launch care model.
Note: Funding is cost-based, meaning grantees submit eligible expenses for reimbursement after costs are incurred.
What Wisconsin Is Prioritizing and Where Pharmacies Fit
Within this one Coordinating Care grant, there are several ways your pharmacy can build a strong application. Wisconsin has identified the priorities and allowable costs below as opportunities to create a more connected, local care. Choose the approach that best fits your community, partners, and patients, then build one clear proposal around it.
New or Expanded Care-Coordination Partnerships
A pharmacy can partner with a local clinic, nutrition program, EMS agency, or other community organization to build a more connected patient-care workflow. The pharmacy may provide medication management, screening, and follow-up, while partners help patients stay connected to the broader care team.
How MedMe helps
- Maintain a shared activity record: MedMe's Pharmacy EHR keeps structured encounter notes, pharmacist interventions, patient communications, and follow-up history in one clinical record.
- Reach patients between visits: The MedMe platform handles appointment booking, reminders, and check-ins by email and text, and Patient Concierge, its AI-powered voice assistant, adds the same over the phone using natural conversation.
Technology for Billing and Tracking Services
Wisconsin identifies technology for billing and tracking services, billing and fiscal infrastructure, and administrative support as allowable costs. This gives pharmacies an opportunity to build the technology foundation behind a new care-coordination program.
How MedMe helps
- Build a Structured Clinical and Billing Record: MedMe's Pharmacy EHR provides built-in, structured templates for each encounter type, keeping care activity organized in one clinical record. Clinical Assistant's AI Scribe drafts visit notes for pharmacist review and sign-off, while supporting documentation can remain connected to claims workflows for separately eligible clinical services.
- Keep Patients and Care Teams Connected: The MedMe platform handles messaging, reminders, and follow-up by email and text, and Patient Concierge, its AI-powered voice assistant, supports outreach, and recurring check-ins over the phone using natural conversation
- Connect with the care team: Where an EHR integration or HIE connections is available and appropriate data-sharing agreements are in place, MedMe can help the pharmacy share relevant follow-up information with the broader care team.
Care Closer to Home, With Less Administrative Work
Wisconsin also wants sustainable models that deliver care in trusted, local settings. Reducing repetitive administrative tasks gives pharmacy teams more capacity to focus on patients.
How MedMe helps
- Document efficiently: MedMe's Pharmacy EHR provides structured templates for each encounter type. Clinical Assistant's AI Scribe drafts notes from the consultation for pharmacist review and sign-off.
- Reduce manual work: Admin Clerk helps reduce repetitive data entry, while CSV uploads bring patient lists into MedMe without requiring staff to create every record by hand.
Note: Planning-period funds cannot cover direct clinical-provider salaries, so a technology, workflow, and partnership-planning proposal is really well aligned for the first six months
Technology for Billing, Tracking, and Coordinating Care
Wisconsin specifically identifies technology for billing and tracking services as an allowable investment. A partnership model needs a repeatable way to schedule patients, deliver care, document the encounter, track follow-up, communicate with partners, and show the value of the program.
MedMe works alongside your current pharmacy management system (PMS). Your PMS remains the system for dispensing and inventory. MedMe adds the clinical infrastructure needed to run and grow pharmacy-led care services.
| Grant Requirement / Program Need | Running With MedMe | Without Proper EMR / Traditional PMS |
|---|---|---|
| Shared referral and care workflow | Scheduling, intake, structured encounters, care plans, and follow-up are connected in one clinical workflow. | Referrals, appointments, and follow-up may be managed across calls, paper forms, spreadsheets, and separate tools. |
| Patient outreach | Handles outreach, booking, reminders, and recurring check-ins by email and text, and Patient Concierge, its AI-powered voice assistant, adds the same over the phone using natural conversation. | Staff may rely on manual calls and individually maintained outreach lists. |
| Structured documentation | Built-in encounter templates within the MedMe platform create a consistent clinical record, and the Clinical Assistant's AI Scribe drafts notes into the right fields for pharmacist review and sign-off, saving around 15 minutes per patient | Notes may remain in dispensing comments, paper records, or inconsistent templates. |
| Care-team coordination | MedMe keeps encounter notes, provider communication, outreach, and follow-up together. Approved integrations can support the pharmacy's role in exchanging relevant information with partners. | Calls, faxes, referrals, and provider recommendations may be difficult to track consistently across disconnected systems. |
| Billing, tracking, and reporting | MedMe's revenue cycle management helps the pharmacy submit medical claims for clinical services, verifies patient eligibility, and track claims to payment, while every encounter stays in a structured, reportable record, the billing and tracking infrastructure the grant funds as allowable. | No mechanism to bill for clinical services or track them for reporting. Staff may need to reconstruct patient activity, service delivery, and outcomes from multiple systems |
How can a Wisconsin pharmacy apply for Coordinating Care?
Step 1: Start with a real community care gap
Choose a problem your pharmacy and potential partners see repeatedly. This could be missed post-discharge follow-up, diabetes-management barriers, lack of nutrition support, fragmented referrals, or difficulty reaching patients between appointments.
Step 2: Build a new or expanded partnership
A pharmacy can apply directly, but this is a partnership grant. Identify a partner that makes the model stronger and explain what is new about the work, what each organization will contribute, how it brings care closer to home, and how the partnership will continue after the grant.
Step 3: Write the letter of application
Submit a one-or two-page letter through Wisconsin's online application form by August 21, 2026. The letter should clearly explain the innovative approach, partnership model, community need, and expected outcomes. Upload a planning-period budget using the required Wisconsin budget template. You must also estimate the expected four-year funding tier for the full project period.
Step 4: Use the planning period to get ready for the full award
Approved planning-grant recipients will have six months to strengthen the partnership, collect data, finalize workflows, and create the detailed full proposal. Only approved planning-grant recipients can apply for the full award in 2027.
If you are looking for a partner, WCHQ can help connect your pharmacy with rural organizations and stakeholders that share your priorities; request support at rhtp-evaluation@wisc.edu.
When to start
The letter of application is due August 21, 2026, at 11:59 p.m. Central Time. Wisconsin expects to notify planning-grant awardees in October 2026, with the planning period running from November 1, 2026, through April 30, 2027.
The full application is expected in February or March 2027. Even if your pharmacy is still developing its partnership, this is the time to identify the community gap, bring the right organizations together, and build the clinical infrastructure that will support the model.
Building a sustainability plan
Wisconsin's Coordinate Care grant gives pharmacies and their partners the chance to build a care model that can keep serving patients long after the grant period ends. A strong application shows how the partnership will grow into a lasting part of local healthcare. Wisconsin encourages applicants to consider how reimbursement, payer mix, patient volume, operational efficiencies, and other funding sources can support the program over time.
For pharmacies, this is an opportunity to create a more connected, sustainable role in patient care: one that brings services closer to home, strengthens relationships with local partners, and supports patients between appointments.
Your sustainability plan can highlight:
- How the partnership will create a more coordinated local care experience
- Which clinical services may create ongoing reimbursement opportunities
- How the team will use technology and streamlined workflows to serve patients efficiently
- How patient volume and community need can support the model's continued growth
- How the program will contribute to stronger access and health outcomes over time
Bring the right partners together, build the workflows, and create a stronger care-coordination model for your community.
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