News Test

Closures of Rural Hospitals Increases Mortality

NIH Study Highlights Impacts of ED Openings and Closures for Heart Attack Patients A new study funded by the National Institutes of Health shows the impacts of rural hospitals opening and closing, decreasing and increasing travel time, respectively. The study found that when a new emergency department opens within 30 minutes...

Town in Rural Missouri Raises Sales Tax to Save Local Hospital

Nevada Regional Medical Center, which serves much of the area between Joplin and Kansas City, was slated to close before voters chose to increase their taxes in order to save the hospital. The increase is projected to raise 800,000 dollars per year, enough to pay off the hospital’s debts. The...

White House Debuts Postpartum Medicaid Plan

“Maternal health is a growing concern,” CMS Administrator Seema Verma said at a Kaiser Family Foundation event on June 12, 2019. CMS will be focusing on different ways to improve maternal health in rural areas, including expanding Medicare access to telehealth services and promoting policies to help prevent rural hospital...

2020 Election May See Rural Health as Stand Out Issue

In a bipartisan op-ed piece this week in The Hill it was revealed that in a joint poll from the American Heart Association, that over 90% of Americans, regardless of party affiliation, consider access to rural health an important issue. For the full op-ed piece click here....

Louisiana Protects Rural Hospitals by Banning Freestanding ERs

Rural Hospitals gain a win in Louisiana thanks to a bill Louisiana lawmakers have submitted prohibiting the creation of most new freestanding emergency rooms. The main consideration in the ban is that no freestanding ER can be created in the primary service area of rural hospital. A 33-1 Senate vote...

CAH Coalition Meets with CMS Administrator

On May 20, CAH executives met with CMS Administrator Seema Verma to discuss our Regulatory Relief Initiative. On May 21, we met with Senate Finance Committee staff to raise issues reforms needed for CAHs to continue to provide the highest quality of care to our rural patients. The Coalition was...

Rural Hospital in Iowa Sues Medicaid Insurers for Underpayments

Virginia Gay Hospital (VGH), a critical-access hospital in Vinton, Iowa, has a filed a lawsuit against three private insurance companies that oversee the Iowa’s Medicaid program. This is part of the privatization of Medicaid that was launched in Iowa in April 2016. The lawsuit alleges that the three insurance companies,...

Ballot Initiative to Expand Medicaid in Nebraska met with Skepticism

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 patients in rural areas do...

Rural Hospital Closures Increased with Falling Inpatient Use

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 with for-profit ownership. Overall, there...