HRSA reopens Form 5A and Form 5B — every health center's scope-of-project documents — plus all six change-in-scope checklists; comments close September 28

HRSA published an information collection request revision on July 30, 2026 (Federal Register document 2026-15419, 91 FR 48170) proposing to modify eight approved Health Center Program Forms and add three new ones, with comments due September 28, 2026. The respondent scope is stated in words, not inferred: 'Likely Respondents: Health Center Program award recipients (those funded under section 330 of the Public Health Service Act) and Health Center Program look-alikes.'

The forms being modified are the ones that define what a health center is allowed to do and where: Form 5A: Services Provided ('Update labels and categories of services'), Form 5B: Sites ('Modify fields collecting site information'), and all six change-in-scope checklists (Form 5A and 5B Scope Adjustments, Adding/Deleting a Service Site, Adding/Deleting a Service).

Three new forms appear: a Checklist for Replacing a Service Site in Scope, a Quality Improvement Fund (QIF) Final Report, and a Loan Guarantee Progress Report. Burden totals are 27,769 respondents / 29,607 responses / 31,302.05 annual hours — a net REDUCTION of 1,483.50 hours against the package OMB approved on May 31, 2026, meaning HRSA is reopening an ICR it cleared only two months ago.

Scope discipline matters here: the notice frames its purpose as program monitoring, scope documentation, and change-in-scope efficiency. It says nothing about payment. Any downstream consequence for PPS billing, FTCA coverage, or 340B eligibility that flows from a scope change is our inference and not a claim in the document.

This belongs in the same low-visibility, high-consequence category as the OMB Uniform Guidance rewrite: nobody will send a press release about a checklist, and it governs how you add a site.