Rural Healthcare

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…

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,…

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…

Amy Hart, CEO of Cuyuna Regional Medical Center in Crosby, Minn., understands as well as anyone in her position that varied perspectives are valuable in leadership — and that it can be lonely at the top. In that vein, she…

CMS’ Ambulatory Specialty Model could cause thousands of Medicare beneficiaries with low back pain and heart failure to lose access to specialty care, and could leave small rural communities without specialists, according to an Oct. 27 report from the Center…

Rural hospitals and health systems make up a growing share of the workforce reductions Becker’s has tracked in 2026, even as rural hospital closures have slowed. Becker’s compared its 2026 lists of hospital and health system job cuts and closures…

Like many healthcare leaders, Wyatt Brieser is intent on turning challenging situations into victories.  For Mr. Brieser, who has served in multiple roles at Hammond-Henry Hospital in Geneseo, Ill., over 17 years, including as CEO since July 2025, the process…

David Yackell, CHC Vice President of Hospital Financial Operations, and Joe Thomason, CHC Senior Vice President of Hospital Operations, discuss the challenges of revenue cycle management for community hospitals and how to improve revenue cycle performance.

Keith Mueller, PhD, director of the Rural Policy Research Institute at the University of Iowa in Iowa City, and a founding member of its Health Panel, died Sept. 26 following a brief illness. He was widely regarded as one of…