What to Look for in an RHTP Tech Vendor: Turning Vendor Relationships into RHTP Success

Rural Health Transformation success requires support from all stakeholders—tech vendors included. RHTP’s state-driven, multi-stakeholder complexity means no single provider or state leadership team has the full technical literacy needed across every funded area of focus.

As hospitals, health systems, rural health clinics, FQHCs and state leadership move forward with their Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP) strategies, they should tap tech vendors as partners—strategic advisors specialized in translating technology decisions into outcomes for the care and professional communities RHTP is meant to serve. 

How Tech Vendors Enable RHTP Success

In RHTP, your tech vendors should serve as more than just solution providers. They should be guides not just within their solution category, but across how it connects to others—providing compliance insight, supporting interoperability and integration, and helping leadership execute in a way that protects the state’s award against clawbacks. 

Their experience is invaluable in determining whether your best option is to innovate, expand an initiative that already performs well, or even postpone or avoid a particular application altogether. 

To make the most out of your current and future vendor partners, look for opportunities to apply their specialized knowledge at four levels of the RHTP process. 

Level 1-Program design 

Tech vendors can provide a wealth of ideas in using technology to accomplish the highest priority goals for hospitals, health systems, FQHCs, and behavioral health organizations. Use their broad experience across a solution category and tap them for inspiration in: 

• Untapped potential of their solution categories in achieving plan goals
• Measurement and metrics
• Governance, risk management, and compliance (GRC)
• Fiscal sustainability and cost tracking
• Application and iteration  

Level 2-State RFP response

While no one vendor should dominate RFP responses, vendors can provide insight that improves chances of funding application success. Vendors can be assets in helping move applications faster, getting your leadership ahead of timelines, matching state priorities, and keeping scopes credible and realistic.

Level 3-Implementation

This is a vendor partner’s most visible role—one that relies on upstream work in program design and grant applications to be most effective in meeting scoring and measurement requirements. Look for vendor partners who have proof of investment in rural health and similar care communities. 

Level 4-Renewal and sustainability

RHTP runs through 2030, but true “transformation” is an indefinite target. Your vendor partners should work with leadership to establish a vision that extends fluidly from year to year, helping you debrief and iterate through 2030 and well beyond the limits of RHTP. 

What to Look For in an RHTP Technology Vendor

As the Rural Health Transformation Program evolves, look for vendors who demonstrate investment in four key areas. 

They Have Relevant Experience—and not Just in Rural

Prioritize vendor relationships where you find experience relevant to your organization’s context. This of course can mean rural health, but relevance shouldn’t end there. 

Contextual similarities can include program goals and whether they’ve achieved them in other organizations (e.g. cost tracking and containment), your community’s specific challenges (e.g. high levels of ED admissions), or similar regional challenges. For example, an RFP respondent in Hawai’i might consider a vendor who was able to implement telemedicine across Greece’s smaller outlying islands since they face similar logistical challenges. 

They Understand How Their Solution Moves RHTP Metrics and Risk

State progress reports started August 2026 which means program participants and state leadership are under pressure to report on state performance and compliance metrics tied to CMS’s annual rescoring cycle. 

To ensure your results are easily measurable and repeatable, look for vendors who can discuss how their solutions support RHTP goals and scoring, as well as how they’re managing risk in the long term. 

These should map to your own RHTP targets and serve in helping you identify solutions that align with your goals. A well-aligned vendor will treat RHTP as 5-year infrastructure, and not just a grant that checks a box. 

They Leverage Knowledge Across States

RHTP is highly state specific, but this doesn’t mean there aren’t lessons to be learned and translated across state borders. 

The most effective vendor partners can share what they’ve learned from other states, bringing information and pattern recognition their customers otherwise wouldn’t have access to. 

For example, Dr. Oz recently spoke on the risk of clawbacks, specifically addressing Kentucky, but the principle applies to any state’s award.  “If…the governor cannot use the money as was promised in the grant, it will be taken back by the federal government.”

Cross-state knowledge can include lessons learned in other rural contexts, program design,  and the potential of the solution in a community context.

They Have a Vision That Supports Your Needs

The best vendor partners will have a vision for Rural Health Transformation and they’ll communicate that well. 

This includes providing content that educates rural health leaders on the potential of technology, resources that support smart decision-making, and consultative support that helps you go into  program planning and RFP response informed and well-equipped. 

Establishing a Productive RHTP Perspective

RHTP is an ongoing program—the providers and state leaders who get the most from RHTP will prioritize vendors who build their tech literacy as consultative partners. Look for vendors who know that longevity is built on relationships that go deeper than a sales deck. Abbie Steinbrueck, PA-C explains the potential role of vendor partnerships. 

The strongest vendor partners help build the internal knowledge and infrastructure needed for a program to continue independently. The real test of a vendor relationship is what happens after the rep or internal champion leaves. In a rural hospital, if the knowledge, workflow, and ownership leave with them, the hospital hasn’t really built a sustainable program, it’s built a dependency. 

To keep up with your state’s program structure, this site does a good job of condensing information that’s typically scattered across sites including the state’s CMS page, its administering agencies, program and procurement pages, and a dated log of activity. 

If you have questions or would like to share your experiences with tech vendors in RHTP, feel free to contact me at growth@locutushealth.com. 

For Tech Vendors

If you’re a tech vendor trying to figure out how to show up with real value—this is where LocutusHealth can help you build clarity around your role and lay the foundation for lasting relationships in the future of RHTP. Get started here.