With Medicaid expansion on the ballot in this November’s midterm election, some rural hospitals have tempered their expectations of how it would increase their margins. The Nebraska Hospital Association, which has pushed expansion for years, indicated that rural providers might not fully benefit if enough...
The GAO found that most rural hospital closures were the result of financial distress. A 2016 study found that rural hospitals that closed from 2010-2014 had a medial operating margin of -7.41%. The GAO also found a disproportionately higher number of closures among rural hospitals...
Patients in rural Illinois are able to receive care close to home despite the lack of neurologist on staff in their hospital. A new telestroke care program in Illinois has significantly cut response time in those most crucial moments immediately following a stroke. The program...
The Georgetown University Health Policy Institute Center for Children and Families found that the rates of uninsured low-income adult citizens has sharply decreased across the country. Since 2008 and 2009, small towns and rural areas in states that expanded Medicaid have seen the largest decrease...
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released a proposed rule that would reduce a handful of regulatory burdens on Critical Access Hospitals. As part of CMS' Patients Over Paperwork initiative, CMS has identified unnecessarily burdensome regulations on CAHs to be removed. These reductions may...
UnitedHealth Group's recent report details the extent of the physician shortage throughout the United States. The report finds that 13% of Americans (44 million people) live in the counties facing a primary care physician shortage. Rural residents are five times as likely to live in...
Demographic shifts and improper reimbursement has rural hospitals facing increased risks of shutdown and bankruptcy as bad debt has risen by 50 percent. “The reason why hospitals are closing at such a rapid rate is they really are subsidizing the cost of care that they’re providing…....
The CDC found in a 2017 study that rural teens in America are 11% less likely to have been vaccinated against HPV cancers and meningitis. What Can Rural Clinicians Do? Clinicians in rural communities can play a critical role in their patients’ health by following three Rs: ...
"Georgia’s Legislature is once again brainstorming legislation to address the state’s rural health care crisis. Sixty-four of 159 counties have no pediatrician; 79 have no obstetrician/gynecologist; and nine, like Webster, simply have no doctor. That makes Georgia worse than the national average for needy areas...