As rural healthcare continues to face cross-winds from workforce fulfillment challenges, anticipated Medicaid cuts and revenue cycle issues, hospital leaders are confronting problems that know no ZIP code boundaries. In Arcata, Calif., Mad River Community Hospital’s COO Matt Anderson told…
Rural Health
Rural healthcare is entering a period of widespread change, with financial strain and workforce shortages now running up against new policies and shifting demographics that could reshape how care is delivered, according to a March 12 research summary from Brookings.…
Morgantown, W.Va.-based WVU Medicine has partnered with Monongalia County (W.Va.) Schools to fast track healthcare careers for high schoolers. The MedEd program mixes classroom-based learning at high schools with on-site learning at a WVU Medicine or clinic, according to a…
Cottage Hospital in Woodsville, N.H., was facing a negative 16% margin less than a year ago — and Holly McCormack, the hospital’s president and CEO, knew the math wasn’t going to fix itself. Travel staff costs had ballooned into the…
When Congress packaged $50 billion for rural healthcare inside HR 1, it offered a number large enough to generate headlines and excitement. But the distribution of funds, planned over five years, has raised questions. The Rural Health Transformation Program arrived…
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Indiana secured federal approval to update its hospital assessment fee and state-directed payment programs, according to a May 15 news release. Under the reforms, hospital assessments are maximized at the 6% federal limit, and assessments are based on net patient…
On the surface, the conventional rural health story is one marked by rising financial pressures, dwindling care access and closure risks. But those constraints don’t define rural healthcare, and the idea that rural systems are always playing “catch up” to…
While rural healthcare challenges are real and largely driven by proposed federal policy shifts, they “cannot be examined in a vacuum,” two Richmond, Va.-based VCU Health hospital presidents wrote in a recent column. Innovation is a necessity for rural hospitals,…
Legislators in Ohio are considering two bills that would create new restrictions for noncompetes as rural healthcare systems in the state continue to face an uphill battle against staffing shortages, The Columbus Dispatch reported May 12. The report delves into…
Norwood, Colo.-based Uncompahgre Medical Center sits in a service area roughly the size of Delaware on Colorado’s Western Slope — a region so sparsely populated that it qualifies as rural and frontier, with about seven people per square mile. As…