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There is hope for rural healthcare — if we choose transformation over temporary relief
When I read the recent Becker’s Hospital Review brief, “Rural hospital CEO sees ‘no hope in the rural health transformation funds,’” I understood the frustration behind the headline. For decades, rural hospitals have been asked to do more with less.…
A little more than a year after H.R. 1 rocked health systems’ financial projections and five-year plans, this fall will bring the trial of Luigi Mangione and midterm elections, putting healthcare dissatisfaction back into the spotlight.
A Missouri Senate bill heard April 15 would allow Columbia-based MU Health Care to expand its reach in rural communities and grant it immunity from antitrust laws within the 25 counties specified in the bill. Here are six things to…
Missouri lawmakers are right to treat the collapse of rural healthcare as an urgent crisis. Nearly half of the state’s remaining rural hospitals are at risk of closure, and many communities already know what it means to lose emergency rooms,…
As rural hospital leaders guide their organizations through 2026, they are juggling the financial pressure of federal Medicaid changes while looking to state legislatures for tools to stabilize their organizations. From Nebraska’s Medicaid work requirements to New Mexico’s updated physician…
A Republican representative from Florida has introduced legislation that would eliminate the federal H-1B visa program, which allows employers to hire highly skilled foreign professionals through temporary work visas. Rep. Greg Steube, R-Fla., introduced the Ending Exploitative Imported Labor Exemptions,…
In recent years, a swell of states has adopted laws to lessen the requirements for foreign-trained physicians to join the U.S. workforce. The laws aim to combat the nation’s growing physician shortage, which is becoming more urgent as patient acuity…
CMS seeks to remove regulatory friction around how clinicians practice and move across state lines as part of its $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program. The agency explicitly incorporated scope-of-practice reform and licensure compacts into its funding methodology for the…
The American Medical Association is asking Congress to make pandemic-era telemedicine changes permanent ahead of their Jan. 30 expiration. Those flexibilities lapsed amid the recent government closure, coinciding with a 24% national decline in fee-for-service telehealth visits during the first…
Federal officials and industry leaders outlined key policy shifts ahead for telehealth during the American Telemedicine Association EDGE 2025 Policy Conference Dec. 10, emphasizing that virtual care’s long-term viability hinges on stable rules around licensure, payment, fraud and AI governance.…