Gov. Josh Stein and the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services (NCDHHS) announced more than $17 million for investments to improve mental health services through North Carolina’s Rural Health Transformation Program (NCRHTP).
“Every North Carolinian deserves the opportunity to live a healthy and fulfilling life,” Stein said. “Nearly 1.5 million North Carolinians struggle with mental health issues, and too many people in rural areas cannot access the care they need. These investments will connect more families to high-quality care in their communities.”
NCDHHS received more than $213 million in federal funding for the 2026-27 fiscal year from the U.S. Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) for the NCRHTP to improve health outcomes for the state’s more than 3.5 million rural residents, the second-largest rural population in the country. A key initiative of the NCRHTP is expanding behavioral health care and substance use services.
This wave of funding includes: $4 million for Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics; $3 million to expand Medications for Opioid Use Disorder Access $4 million to expand Mobile Outreach, Response, Engagement, and Stabilization teams; $3 million for Coordinated Specialty Care for first-episode psychosis response; $2.9 million to establish regional Rural Crisis Partnerships; $800,000 to expand NC MATTERS.
“There is no health without mental health,” said NC Health and Human Services Secretary Dev Sangvai. “Our goal is to build a comprehensive system that delivers high-quality services to residents no matter where they live. These initiatives expand access to care and support whole-person well-being, directly advancing the NCDHHS mission to provide essential services that improve the health, safety, and well-being of all North Carolinians while developing a sustainable healthcare workforce for the future.”
These NCRHTP investments in mental healthcare support NCDHHS’s strategic priorities to improve access to care, deliver high-quality services that address whole-person well-being, build a system that modernizes how services are delivered and strengthens rural care, and build a sustainable workforce to deliver quality care to all residents regardless of where they live.
To learn more about how NCDHHS is improving rural health care through this federal partnership, visit the NCRHTP website.
