About RVHAP

The State Funded Rural Veterans Health Access Program (RVHAP) supports two programs covering 11 rural counties:

1. Six County Association of Governments (AOG) Veterans Directed-Home and Community Based Benefits Program: This program assists veterans with barriers to their healthcare access and promotes connections among the VA and rural health clinics.
2. Utah State University Cover to Cover program (C2C).  The C2C program provides training to agency staff to create paths for veterans within their community to learn more about VA benefits and how to get connected to those benefits.

Program purpose

Over a three-year period, the Rural Veterans Health Access Program (RVHAP) will:

• Create a Utah Rural Veteran Coalition (URVC) consisting of CAHs, RHCs, FQHCs, and Veteran Resource Centers among others, in an effort to create a sustainable communication network between rural organizations providing and coordinating care to rural veterans and the VA. The coalition would meet quarterly to monitor projects, share data, and increase awareness of each facility’s resources.
• Conduct a statewide needs assessment to collect data on resources, programs, best practices, and organizations currently available to assist veterans in all rural and urban counties.
• Provide data driven trainings identified in the needs assessment to rural hospitals and clinics on best practices and awareness of resources available to veterans who utilize their facilities.
• Integrate the National Telemental Health HUB program into rural hospitals and clinics.
• Disseminate information collected through the statewide needs assessment and URVC to produce training manuals, resource guides, conferences and sustainable practice techniques for all rural and urban facilities to utilize when treating and coordinating care for their veteran population.