HRSA reopens Form 5A and Form 5B

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 notice names its respondents: '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.

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 comes from elsewhere, not from this 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.