Category: Rural Health
Study: Obstetrics Units in Rural Communities Declining
According to the researchers, the decline of obstetrics units in rural communities is contributing to rising maternal morbidity rates.
Economists: Rural Uninsured Rates Likely to Rise if ACA Premium Tax Credits Expire
For residents in rural communities across the country, those rising prices could mean not having access to health insurance anymore.
For Many Rural Women, Finding Maternity Care Outweighs Concerns About Abortion Access
A study that examined nearly 5,000 acute care hospitals found that by 2022, 52% of rural hospitals lacked obstetrics care after more than a decade of unit closures. The health implications of those closures for young women, the population most likely to need pregnancy care, and their babies can be significant. Research has shown that added distance between a patient and obstetric care increases the likelihood the baby will be admitted to a neonatal intensive care unit, or NICU.
Study: Rural residents more likely to struggle with medical debt
The researchers found that 11.5 percent of white rural residents said they had problems paying medical bills, and 7.6 percent were unable to pay them.
45 Degrees North: The Rural Cancer Commute
If you come from a rural area, you probably know someone who has had to make that kind of commute for treatment. Who has weighed the cost of gas, food and lodging away from home. Who has learned the back ways around a strange city to avoid road construction or rush hour congestion. Who packed an extra week’s worth of clothes, just in case.
‘Dismayed, but Not Surprised:’ Health Gap Between Urban and Rural America Is on the Rise
The dwindling of rural communities is a reality reflected across rural America, and it doesn’t bode well for the health of the residents of those communities: likely even poorer access to health care and all manner of services and amenities. Or for that of the community as a body: less voice in decisions made at the state and federal levels.
Report: Rural Women See Drops in Health and Reproductive Care
Differences in Medicaid coverage – whether it is in the 10 states that have yet to expand Medicaid, or the unwinding of Covid-19-based Medicaid coverage – has left millions of women either uninsured or with gaps in their health care coverage.
Small-Town Patients Face Big Hurdles as Rural Hospitals Cut Cancer Care
For rural patients, getting cancer treatment close to home has always been difficult. But in recent years, chemotherapy deserts have expanded across the United States, with 382 rural hospitals halting services from 2014 to 2022.
Rural Health Clinics with ‘Head-to-Toe and Womb-to-Tomb’ Care
Rural health clinics are safety net providers whose original mandate was primarily to increase access to care for those on Medicaid or Medicare. They provided primary care and perhaps a few other services. But the Rural Health Clinic program has evolved over the years, and some clinics, like Primary Care Centers of Eastern Kentucky, have expanded their roles quite considerably.
‘Grotesque Catch-22’ – Sickest Rural Adults Are the Least Likely to Be Able to Pay for Healthcare
Research on cost barriers to health care found that rural adults were more likely than urban adults to report being unable to pay their medical bills or have problems paying their medical bills. Rural adults also were more likely to use medications in ways not prescribed (like taking pills every other day or only filling prescriptions every other month) to save money on medication.
Struggling to Survive, the First Rural Hospitals Line Up for New Federal Lifeline
Facilities that convert to Rural Emergency Hospital status will get a 5% increase in Medicare payments as well as an average annual facility fee payment of about $3.2 million in exchange for giving up their expensive inpatient beds and focusing solely on emergency and outpatient care. Rural hospitals with no more than 50 beds that closed after the law passed on Dec. 27, 2020, are eligible to apply for the new payment model if they reopen.
Texas Town Tries a New Model for Saving Rural Health Care
The revamped facilities will transfer people who need inpatient care to full-service hospitals nearby. But for many rural communities, such conversions to fewer services will be a bitter pill to swallow.
How primary care is poised to support reproductive health and abortion in the post-Roe era, UW doctors say
Emily M. Godfrey, University of Washington and Adelaide H. McClintock, University of Washington Just over a month after the Supreme Court struck down 50 years of federal protection of abortion rights in the U.S., at least 43 abortion clinics in…
Doctors Trained Abroad Want to See You Now
A handful of states are easing certain licensing requirements, creating programs for foreign-trained doctors to work alongside U.S.-trained ones, reserving residency spots for immigrant health workers and providing help, sometimes including financial aid, for those working to get a U.S. license. States hope the efforts can not only get medical providers to more places where they are needed—particularly underserved rural and urban areas—but also lead to more professionals who speak the same language as and are culturally attuned to those they treat in an ever more diverse America.
Biden’s Vaccine Mandate Could Further Strain Rural Hospitals
But the story may be more complicated in rural America, where resistance to the vaccine remains strongest. Some rural hospital leaders worry the vaccine mandate will exacerbate a labor shortage that was profound even before the pandemic. There are predictions that some hospitals will have to close their doors.