1. Project Title: Be Well Texas Rural Expansion Program 2. Requested Award Amount: $490,266/year 3. Applicant Organization Name: University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio 4. Applicant Organization Address: 7703 Floyd Curl Drive, San Antonio, Texas 78229 5. Applicant Organization Facility Type: Institute of Higher Learning 6. Project Director Name and Title: Karla Ramirez, Director, Be Well Texas 7. Project Director Contact Information: 210-842-6727; Ramirezk2@uthscsa.edu 8. Data Coordinator Name and Title: Andres Temblador, Research Area Specialist 9. Data Coordinator Contact Information: 562-347-0144; temblador@uthscsa.edu. 10. EIN/DUNS Number Exception Request: No 11. How the Applicant First Learned About the Funding Opportunity: Grants.gov. 12. Number of Consortium Members and List of Members, Including Applicant: 12 members operating in 17 rural sites; UT Health SA/Be Well Texas Clinics; Medmark; Central Plains Center; Resolute/East Texas Council on Alcohol and Drug Abuse; Groundswell/COADA Coastal Bend; Scott and White; Texcoma Community Center; Tropical Texas; Permia Care/Thriving United; AAMA/SCAN; Abilene Recovery Council. 13. Is the Applicant a Previous or Current RCORP Award Recipient or Consortium Member: No 14. Indicate if Applicant Organization Intends to Apply for FY22 RCORP Implementation: Ukn. 15. Does the Service Area Overlap with Other Service Areas? No 16. RCORP-BHS Target Service Area: Texas’ 178 counties that meet HRSA’s definition of Rural. 17. Brief Description of the Target Population: Based on current enrollment data from rural Be Well Texas Network members, participant ethnicity will mirror the state, i.e., White/Hispanic 74.0%, Black or African American 12.1%, other race 5.8%, and Asian 4.8%. Women will be disproportionately represented (60% compared to 50.3% statewide), with greater experiences of trauma as a precipitating factor. Drugs of choice will be prescription opioids, heroin and syn
thetic opioids, primarily fentanyl, and 60-75% of participants are expected to have a co-occurring mental health disorder. Website Address: www.txmoud.org. Brief Description of the Proposed Project: UT Health SA seeks to expand the Be Well Texas Recovery Network, an evidence-based opioid response program, into all of Texas’ 178 rural counties. Be Well Texas will lead and assist a consortium of 28 rural providers in building a responsive behavioral health care delivery system with the capacity to reduce the morbidity and mortality of opioid use disorder (OUD) among Texas’ rural residents. SUD and OUD prevalence rates throughout rural Texas are often higher than prevalence rates in urban areas: nine of the 13 counties with Texas’ highest death rates are rural counties; geographic distribution is statewide, with greatest concentrations in the panhandle, west, north, northeast, and east Texas. Be Well Texas will support the rural provider consortium in delivering low-barrier, digital and/or in-person OUD treatment and recovery support services in alignment with participant needs and preferences. Significant capacity building activities for consortium members are included: 1) introducing telehealth care to address and overcome structural and systems-level barriers and resource insufficiency, and ensure all rural residents’ accessibility to quality care; 2) helping rural providers deliver better care by joining Be Well Texas’ evidence-based training and technical assistance platform; and 3) equipping rural providers to address community risk factors and social determinants of health, deliver or arrange integrated treatment of OUD and co-occurring mental disorders, and connect rural residents to education, employment, housing, and quality of life resources. Removing barriers to care and building the consortium’s capacity to deliver highest quality care will increase community-perceived value and contribute to sustainability.