The state’s 60-page application will be explained in a webinar next week

COLUMBIA — Putting more medical care on wheels. Converting vacated buildings. Encouraging doctors and doctors-in-training to work in rural South Carolina.

Those are among the possibilities for up to $1 billion flowing to South Carolina over the next five years through the $50 billion federal Rural Health Transformation Program.

“It’s a massive amount of funding,” Eunice Medina, director of the state Department of Health and Human Services, told the SC Daily Gazette. “It’s truly a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity for the state.”

Exactly how much will be available for health care in rural South Carolina won’t be known until late December, when the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services will announce states’ awards. In the meantime, South Carolina health officials want providers to get their proposals ready.

Read the full story by Seanna Adcox and Skylar Laird on the South Carolina Daily Gazette website.