Are you Rural? Maybe I should rephrase that. Does your county or hometown lie in a designated rural area? Answering this question is easier than ever. I want to share two tools for calculating your “rural-ness”. My hope is that these tools help motivate you to progress in your telehealth program. Before I proceed let me mention that there has been a lot of good work done by the Telehealth Resource Centers in lobbying the government to change some of the definitions and codes to make sure sites retain the rural designation. You can read more here.
The “Am I Rural” tool from the Rural Assistance Center
The first tool comes from the Rural Assistance Center (RAC) site, (http://www.raconline.org/amirural/). As the page says the tool, “can be used to help determine whether a specific location is considered rural based on various definitions of rural, including definitions that are used as eligibility criteria for federal programs.” There are a few disclaimers there so just check out the page to learn more.
After you click the link on this page, you’ll be at Step 1.
Then on to Step 2 where you’ll check the appropriate boxes and then the bottom, “Am I Rural?” button.
After you click the “Am I Rural?” button you get the treasure trove report. Here’s a screen shot since it’s too long to share on one page.
The box directly above is more of the detailed information the RAC provided to users. You’ll notice the city in question is not in a Primary Care shortage area but is designated as a Mental Care Health Professional Shortage Area. The tool from the RAC site is extremely detailed and contains lots of links that can confirm eligibility for other services. Try it out and see how it can help you.
The “Rural Health Grants Eligibility Analyzer” tool
This next tool is for those writing or applying for a grant. It’s a simple tool that informs the reader if any given county in the US is designated “rural” or not. This designation is key to qualifying for rural assistance funding through HRSA.
You can see it’s a simple tool. Just asking for State or Territory and County. The answer it produces is in green. Below each search result is this qualification, “Health care providers who provide services in geographic areas that are defined as Rural Health area are eligible to apply for Rural Health Grants.”
Here’s the result for a county that doesn’t pass the rural eligibility test. In this case, an obvious one, Shelby County, Tennessee.
Let us know if this was helpful in the comments box below.
