Rural Health

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…

The deadline is not here yet, but the bill is already coming due. HR 1‘s most consequential Medicaid changes, work requirements for able-bodied recipients and tighter rules on state financing mechanisms, do not fully take effect until 2027. But hospitals…

U.S. Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Michael Bennet, D-Colo., have introduced a bill that would extend the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration Program for an additional five years.  The program allows rural hospitals with fewer than 51 beds that don’t qualify…

Critical access hospitals occupy a singular place in the American healthcare system. With a maximum of 25 inpatient beds and a mandate to provide around-the-clock emergency care, these institutions do far more with far less than almost any other type…

Rural hospitals face an accelerating financial squeeze, driven by declining reimbursement, rising labor costs, workforce shortages and increasing demand from aging populations. In response, policymakers have proposed financial support, including a $50 billion federal allocation intended to stabilize rural healthcare…

Mississippi has established the Mississippi Rural Health Transformation Program Office and launched a related website. The office will coordinate implementation of the state’s rural health plan, align agencies and oversee program administration, according to an April 29 news release from…

Rural healthcare is at an inflection point. Hospitals are closing or scaling back essential services. Labor and delivery units are disappearing. Rural operating rooms sit idle not due to a lack of patients, but to a shortage of clinicians. At…

For millions of patients throughout the U.S., rural hospitals serve as the only feasible care option in their area. The CEOs who run these institutions understand that access to quality healthcare services in rural communities can make all the difference…

Fifty hospitals across 21 states have converted to rural emergency facilities since the law that created the designation took effect in January 2023, according to data from CMS. Here are the hospitals that have converted to rural emergency status, by…