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MINNEAPOLIMEDIA NEWS | Minnesota Community Clinics Face October 30 Deadline for Grants Supporting Uninsured and Underinsured Patients
The state has $561,000 available for the fiscal-year 2027 funding round, with individual awards capped at $45,000.
SAINT PAUL, MN (October 24, 2026). Minnesota community clinics have until 4:30 p.m. Friday, October 30, to apply for state funding intended to maintain or expand access to care for uninsured and underinsured patients.
The Minnesota Department of Health’s fiscal-year 2027 Community Clinic Grant round has $561,000 available. The department anticipates approximately 10 to 13 awards, with a maximum of $45,000 per grant.
Applications must be submitted through the Office of Rural Health and Primary Care’s online grants portal.
Eligible applicants include qualifying nonprofit clinics, government-operated clinics, Indian Health Service units, Tribal government clinics and consortia. Applicants must have procedures ensuring that inability to pay does not prevent a person from receiving services.
A Program for the Clinical Safety Net
The grant program’s underlying statute addresses the ongoing viability of clinics serving low-income populations and the cost of uncompensated care.
It authorizes assistance in both metropolitan and rural Minnesota. The program is therefore relevant to eligible Twin Cities providers as well as organizations outside the metropolitan area.
Statutory categories include support for patient-care expenses, clinical equipment, information and billing systems, facility improvements and care-delivery needs such as translation and interpretation. Applicants must follow the current funding round’s request for proposals when determining which expenses qualify.
The distinction matters: an activity permitted under the broader statute is not automatically approved under a particular grant competition.
What an Application Must Demonstrate
The law calls for applicants to identify the problem they intend to address, describe achievable objectives and provide a work plan, implementation timeline and method of evaluating results.
It also directs the department to consider collaboration with other clinics, hospitals, providers or community organizations.
For clinics serving multilingual communities, the statutory recognition of interpretation and translation is significant. Those services are identified as potential care-delivery improvements, alongside equipment and other infrastructure.
The program awards money to eligible provider organizations. It is not an application process through which individual patients receive a $45,000 payment.
Where to Apply
Applicants should use the current fiscal-year 2027 materials, rather than an older request for proposals that may remain visible in search results.
The department’s grants and funding page links to the application portal and supporting documents.
Program questions can be directed to health.CommunityClinicGrant@state.mn.us or 651-201-3870.
No awards from this round are being announced in this report. The immediate action for eligible organizations is completing and submitting their applications before the October 30 deadline.
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