When seven rural hospitals decided to pursue federal rural health transformation funding together, the first step was getting rivals into the same room. “We left all our competition at the door, and in the room, we began to brainstorm: How…
Rural Health
While the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program has left many with questions on if, when and just how much funding they will receive, the program has won over some skeptics. Kurt Forsyth, president of Salt Lake City-based Intermountain Health’s…
Almost one year into HR 1’s $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program, many rural hospital leaders still have questions about the funds. Administered by CMS, $10 billion annually will be distributed to all 50 states from 2026 through 2030, with…
The beginning of Stephanie Everett’s tenure as administrator and CEO of Mountrail County Health Center in Stanley, N.D., will be impossible to forget: Two weeks after she took the helm in March 2020, the COVID-19 pandemic hit. “I think anybody…
When Albert Wright Jr., PharmD, became CEO of Morgantown-based WVU Medicine in 2014, the system had five hospitals. It now has 31 across four states, and its largest deal yet just took it into Pittsburgh’s suburbs. That reach is deliberate,…
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Renton, Wash.-based Providence is owed $1 billion by Medicare Advantage plans. About $600 million of it is from this year alone, according to President and CEO Erik Wexler, and he wants Congress to make payers pay faster. Mr. Wexler is…
After a brief post-pandemic lull, hospital consolidation is accelerating again, with large health systems expanding across state lines, absorbing independent hospitals and reshaping regional care markets. From portfolio resets and strategic exits to cross-market mergers and billion-dollar investments, these moves…
When Tawny Sandifer, MSN, RN, chief nursing officer at Columbus (Neb.) Community Hospital, looks at her nursing staff, she sees what she calls an “inverted experience pyramid”: a workforce weighted heavily toward newer graduates, with fewer of the seasoned nurses…
States are earmarking specific slices of their Rural Health Transformation Program dollars for technology upgrades, service expansions and workforce pipeline development. CMS has announced 54 such efforts since August. Each state’s full fiscal year 2026 award was set in December…
For many rural hospitals, financial pressure stems less from a lack of resources than from value lost in the ones they already have. Becker’s asked rural healthcare leaders where patients, capacity, reimbursement and strategic assets are losing value, and many…