Reeves awards $104 million in rural health grants to 167 Mississippi providers

The awards represent more than half of Mississippi's Rural Health Transformation funding for this year.

The governor's office raised the round from about $80 million to $104 million after high demand.

The program is meant to offset federal spending cuts signed in July 2025 that are expected to hit rural hospitals.

The state received more than 700 applications from 236 organizations for the first three grant rounds.

Nearly 500 eligible applications requested about $450 million.

The national program is $50 billion.

The 2nd Congressional District will receive roughly a third of the funding.

States will receive payments over five years.

Mississippi is one of two states where the governor's office directly manages distribution of the money.

Applications were submitted in July, and recipients have until July 2027 to use the funding.

Some lawmakers and stakeholders have objected to the governor's control of the funds.

The 1st Congressional District received $16 million for 32 awards, the smallest amount by district.

In August Reeves announced pilots using the funds for obesity, obstetric care deserts, and rural mental health.

Two pilots will fund crisis diversion centers in Purvis and Pascagoula.

DMH signed August agreements to oversee hospital crisis-care pilots, veterans and first-responder telehealth, and behavioral-health training.

Funding amounts in the DMH agreements obtained by Mississippi Today were redacted.

The pilots will run through the state Department of Health and Department of Mental Health.

The centers are short-term inpatient sites for mental-health or substance-use crises as an alternative to jails or emergency departments.

The Purvis facility will have 16 inpatient beds and a living-room de-escalation area serving Lamar, Forrest, Marion, and Perry counties.

The Pascagoula facility will expand from eight to 16 beds.

DMH requested $650,000 from the Legislature this year for the Pascagoula facility.

WLBT said some of the earliest projects may not be obvious to patients.

Memorial Health System is receiving $15 million.

Leaders hope Mississippi will receive approval for nearly $1 billion over five years.

About $10 million of Memorial's award is for Stone County and about $5 million for Harrison County.

Fourteen awards went to providers in Clarke, Lauderdale, Jasper, Leake, Winston, Scott, Wayne, and Neshoba counties.

Ochsner MS in Lauderdale County received $3 million to modernize nurse call, patient monitoring, and infant security systems.

Outreach Health Services in Clarke County received $229,500 for network protections and a HIPAA security assessment.

Jasper General Hospital received $535,000 for a backup power generator.

Independent Healthcare Management received $3 million to expand robotic surgery and related hospital equipment.

East Central Mississippi Health Care in Leake County received $344,500 to deploy remote monitoring for 1,300 patients.

Outreach Health Services received $218,200 for telehealth chronic-care management.

Independent Healthcare Management in Scott County received $730,000 for technology upgrades.

Wayne General Hospital received $554,357 for a digital health-care ecosystem.

Neshoba County General Hospital received $255,000 for an enterprise data warehouse and decision-support platform.

Wayne General Hospital received $200,000 for mobile telehealth clinical workstations.

The project is supported by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services.