Allowable Investments Search Tool

In general, SHIP allowable investments include activities to assist small rural hospitals with their quality improvement efforts and with their adaptation to changing payment systems through investments in hardware, software and related trainings. This includes aiding with value and quality improvement.

Unallowable investments include, but are not limited to, travel costs, hospital services, hospital staff salaries, or general supplies. Hospitals should contact their State Office of Rural Health (SORH) with questions regarding the appropriateness or fit of a certain activity or hardware/software purchase. For additional clarifications, refer to Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs).

This tool classifies a number of example investment activities as Allowable, Unallowable, or PO Pre-Approval. This is not a comprehensive list. It is only intended to provide examples of allowable SHIP activities.

These links filter the list of investments using an is one of operator. The items in the list will match at least one of the selected keywords (selecting multiple keywords increases the number of results). Selected keywords are bold and preceded by a minus sign (-). Click the links to select or deselect keywords.
Architecture Design or Drafting Consulting Fees
Unallowable

Architecture design and/or drafting consulting costs or fees do not qualify as a SHIP Allowable Investment. Consulting fees of any kind are not allowable unless they are part of education and training.

Hospital Pricing Transparency
Allowable
Payment Bundling (PB)

Hospital pricing transparency training, software, and hardware are allowable uses of SHIP funds.

Please note: Pricing transparency subscription fees can be covered under SHIP for the first year, but SHIP funds should not be used to cover a hospital’s operational cost year after year. Regarding using funds to pay for consultant or vendor to build a price transparency software, this is NOT allowable. SHIP funds can cover for price transparency training of staff for any software or website done by a consultant, but they cannot cover website development time.

Related Resources
340B Drug Pricing Program Training
Allowable
Payment Bundling (PB)

A 340B Drug Pricing Program training intended to increase efficiency or quality improvement in support of Prospective Bundling and Prospective Payment Systems initiatives is an allowable investment.

Emergency Alert Systems
Unallowable

Any kind of emergency alert systems fall under the category of telecommunication systems and are thus NOT an allowable use of SHIP funds.

Tablets/iPads for In House Patient Care Surveys
Unallowable

iPads/Tablets to be used for patient care surveys are not an allowable use of SHIP funds. In general, iPads and tablets to be used by patients and non-hospital staff are unallowable.

HCAHPS Surveys
Allowable
Value-Based Purchasing (VBP) Investment

Hospital Consumer Assessment of Healthcare Providers and Systems (HCAHPS) surveys completed for inpatient services are an allowable use of SHIP funds.

Related Resources
COVID-19 Mitigation Activities
Allowable
SHIP ARP COVID-19 Testing & Mitigation

Costs association with the mitigation of COVID-19 and other related respiratory disease.

Still looking?
Contact us at ship-ta@ruralcenter.org if you can't find your proposed investment activity in this list.

This project is/was supported by the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) under grant number UB1RH24206, Information Services to Rural Hospital Flexibility Program Grantees, $1,560,000 (0% financed with nongovernmental sources). This information or content and conclusions are those of the author and should not be construed as the official position or policy of, nor should any endorsements be inferred by HRSA, HHS or the U.S. Government.