On November 12, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) published Re-imagining Rural Health: Themes, Concepts, and Next Steps from the CMS Innovation Center “Hackathon” Series. The report describes lessons learned from previous Innovation Center models focused on rural health and their application to recent model development, as well as potential areas the Innovation Center might explore to support rural communities.

It also highlights themes and insights from the CMS Innovation Center-hosted 2024 Rural Health Hackathon. The Hackathon series convened rural health providers, community organizations, industry and tech entrepreneurs, philanthropies, policy experts, and patients to generate creative and actionable solutions to address the varied challenges to delivering quality health care in rural communities. The top thematic areas highlighted a need for training, regulatory changes, and collaboration to help improve access to care and support transformation.

The paper also outlines possible considerations for future Accountable Care Organization-focused and other models. Training needs included a nod to loan repayment programs expanding to non-physicians including skilled nursing facility workers something that LeadingAge has supported with regard to expanding Pell Grant access.