PINEDALE — An announcement this week that Wyoming will receive $205 million in federal money through the Rural Health Transformation Program is promising news for Wyoming’s newest hospital in Sublette County.
That’s because bringing health care closer to home for local residents is a primary goal of the program, which has long been a focus of the Sublette County Hospital District.
The community celebrated in September when the $73.8 million Sublette County Hospital complex opened nearly 100 years after the idea of building it first was broached.
Then the focus shifted to how it can stay open with officials at the time saying they were basically “burning” through cash without a special federal designation allowing the facility to receive reimbursements, federal aid and subsidies.
Exactly how Sublette County Hospital, or any other rural health care facilities throughout the state, might benefit from the federal money isn’t clear yet.
“All we know at this point is the total amount that the state is getting,” said Sublette County Hospital Interim CEO Bill Patten.
Patten called the funding announcement “a great opportunity for us and for the state.”
He added he’s hopeful more details about how the funds might be dispersed would be released next week.
“Maybe by next week we’ll begin to know some of the details,” Patten told Cowboy State Daily.
Made For Sublette County
While some details may come out next week, the entire federal award will need to be appropriated, Cowboy State Daily reported Tuesday.
The Wyoming Legislature takes up the full state budget in its session opening Feb. 9.
Moneyu under the Rural Health Transformation Program aims to strengthen and modernize health care in rural communities across the country.
“Thanks to President Trump, Wyoming now has a unique opportunity to help address some of our state’s most challenging rural healthcare issues like hospital viability, EMS sustainability, OB care, and bolstering workforce,” Gov. Mark Gordon said in a statement.
Patten said all of those focuses are needs that Sublette County has.
Sublette County Hospital opened Aug. 5, 2025, ending a streak for Sublette as the only Wyoming county that had never had a hospital.
The new building includes a 40,000-square-foot, 10-bed hospital and a long-term care facility with 40 beds and a memory care unit with 10 beds.
Locals have for generations been accustomed to driving at least 70 miles to get health care, often taking an entire day off work for appointments such as mammograms or X-rays.
The hospital not only brings services closer to home for Sublette County residents, it is changing some long-term behaviors of the community.
“We live in a community that’s been so used to traveling outside for services for so long,” said Tonia Hoffman, chair of the Sublette County Hospital District Board of Trustees. “It’s a learning curve not only for us, but for the community.
“We want to keep gently reminding the community that you don’t have to travel.”
Staying Afloat
Keeping the hospital financially stable is one of the biggest challenges, Patten told Cowboy State Daily.
That’s largely because it cannot operate as a critical access hospital until it meets state and federal requirements, a lengthy process that includes multiple applications and inspections.
Until then, the hospital operates under a Prospective Payment System (PPS), where providers receive fixed, predetermined payments for services.
Operating as a PPS means the hospital must meet higher staffing requirements than it actually needs.
“We’re having to operate more like a general hospital until we obtain critical access status,” Hoffman said. “Then we then we can scale back.”
Initially, the hospital board hoped it would attain critical access status in February. But the 43-day government shutdown last fall slowed the process.
Now the board hopes the hospital will attain Critical Access status by the spring, Hoffman said.
“As we’re going through this process, we just want to be able to get on our feet and stabilize and maintain,” she said.
‘Very Hopeful’
As they anticipate how Wyoming’s federal money might be dispersed, both Patten and Hoffman said they hope the focus will be more on supporting programs and services that already exist rather than building out new programs and services.
“I’m very hopeful that [the Legislature] will take a thoughtful approach to providing these funds,” Hoffman said. “I’m hoping they’ll use them to build on services that are already provided rather than build out new service lines.”
The Rural Health Transformation Program’s $50 billion will be allocated to approved states over five years, with $10 billion available each year from 2026 through 2030.
The first-year awards range from $147 million to $271 million. Wyoming’s award of $205 million was just above the average of $200 million.
Alaska received the most money at $272.1 million.
