The SHIP Grant priorities are ICD-10 and HCAHPS. If you have fully implemented ICD-10 and HCAHPS at your facility, you are eligible to apply for a project that falls under the purview of the SHIP Purchasing Menu. The SHIP Purchasing Menu is broken into three main categories, which are as follows:

  1. Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Investment Activities
  2. Accountable Care Organization (ACO) or Shared Savings Investment Activities
  3. Payment Bundling (PB) or Prospective Payment System (PPS) Investment Activities

The SHIP Grant is supported by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, Health Resources and Services Administration’s Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP), and is made available to ICAHN through the Illinois Department of Public Health’s Center for Rural Health.

To be eligible for the SHIP grant program, hospitals must meet the following requirements: 1) defined as small - 49 available acute beds or less, as reported on most recently filed Medicare Cost Report; 2) located in a rural area or in a Metropolitan Statistical Area or in a Rural Urban Commuting Area called a RUCA or certified as a critical access hospital; and 3) defined as a non-federal short term general acute care facility.

The Illinois Critical Access Hospital Network (ICAHN) administers the SHIP grant program on behalf of the State Office of Rural Health, Illinois Department of Public Health’s Center for Rural Health. ICAHN is responsible for the individual hospital application process and the submission of the state application for all Illinois hospitals collectively.