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Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Access

Broadband Mapping: Small Carrier Perspectives on a Path Forward
Congressional hearing before the U.S. House Committee on Small Business Subcommittee on Contracting and Infrastructure regarding challenges to developing accurate broadband access maps to help direct funding to rural areas without broadband services. Includes testimony from the Competitive Carriers Association, The Rural Broadband Association, WTA-Advocates for Rural Broadband, and the National Rural Electric Cooperative Association.
Additional links: Beth Osler Testimony, Dan Stelpflug Testimony, Jason Hendricks Testimony, Tim Donovan Testimony
Date: 06/2019
Sponsoring organization: U.S. House of Representatives
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Serving Rural America: How Health Insurance Providers Break Down Barriers to Ensure Access to Care
Highlights healthcare challenges in the rural U.S. and provides examples of how health insurance providers have helped address those challenges through telehealth, remote patient monitoring, incentives for rural providers, payment models, and targeting the opioid epidemic. Offers recommendations for state and federal policymakers related to rural recruitment, telehealth, insurance affordability, and population health.
Date: 06/2019
Sponsoring organization: AHIP
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Lower Health Care Costs Act
Recording of a U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor and Pensions hearing on the Lower Health Care Costs Act, which covers access to healthcare, surprise medical bills, market competition, drug prices, and other issues. Includes testimony from an organization that works primarily with small and rural practices, the American Hospital Association, American Enterprise Institute, and others.
Additional links: Benedic N. Ippolito Testimony, Sean Cavanaugh Testimony, Tom Nickels Testimony
Date: 06/2019
Sponsoring organization: Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor & Pensions
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MedPAC Report to the Congress: Medicare and the Health Care Delivery System, June 2019
Evaluates Medicare payment issues and offers recommendations to the U.S. Congress. Includes a chapter on access to primary care for Medicare beneficiaries that addresses rural access to care and programs supporting it, such as the National Health Service Corps. Other sections of the report addressing rural concerns focus on Medicare enrollment, changes in hospice and post-acute care after implementing the long-term care hospital dual payment-rate structure, and Medicare fee-for-service spending for emergency department services.
Additional links: Executive Summary
Date: 06/2019
Sponsoring organization: Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
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Access to Maternal Health Care in Rural Communities: A Patient's Personal Story
Offers a short video featuring a patient's story about accessing maternal healthcare in rural Iowa. Includes the perspective of the obstetrician/gynecologist who provided her care using a combination of telehealth and in-person visits from South Dakota, the closest facility offering the services she needed. Transcript available below description.
Date: 06/2019
Sponsoring organization: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
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Mapping the Food Landscape in New Hampshire
Examines access to food and food support in New Hampshire at a census tract level. Covers farm and non-farm retail food sources, retail sites that accept Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP) and Special Nutrition Program for Women, Infants, and Children (WIC), food support sites such as the National School Lunch Program, and food pantries. Identifies less densely populated areas and areas with more people in poverty and discusses some issues specific to rural areas of the state.
Author(s): Jessica A. Carson
Date: 06/2019
Sponsoring organization: Carsey School of Public Policy
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Analysis of Oral Dietary Supplement Use in Rural Older Adults
Interviewed 138 rural older Nebraskan adults using at least 3 prescribed medications to determine associations with oral dietary supplement (ODS) use. Discusses implications of ODS use alongside prescription medication as well as rural-specific reasons for ODS use.
Author(s): Marcia Y. Shade, Matthew Witry, Katie Robinson, Kevin Kupzyk
Citation: Journal of Clinical Nursing, 28(9-10), 1600-1606
Date: 05/2019
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Addressing Rural Seniors' Unmet Needs For Oral Health Care
Highlights a study on barriers to oral healthcare for rural seniors. Discusses the poor health outcomes seniors face when they lack access to oral healthcare. Details barriers such as cost, lack of insurance coverage, and provider shortages, among others.
Author(s): Cheryl Fish-Parcham, Melissa Burroughs, Eric P. Tranby, Avery R. Brow
Citation: Health Affairs Blog
Date: 05/2019
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Suboptimal Geographic Accessibility to Comprehensive HIV Care in the US: Regional and Urban–Rural Differences
Discusses access to HIV care facilities in urban and rural areas based on travel distance to care sites. Analyzes national data to determine average driving time to care sites and percentage of people living with HIV who have a drive time of greater than 30 minutes. Figure 1 offers a map of the contiguous U.S. representing HIV care sites and the population living with HIV/AIDS by county based on 2014 data.
Author(s): Steven P. Masiano, Erika G. Martin, Rose S. Bono, et al.
Citation: Journal of the International AIDS Society, 22(5), e25286
Date: 05/2019
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Examining Urban and Rural Differences in How Distance to Care Influences the Initiation and Completion of Treatment among Insured Cervical Cancer Patients
Study examining rates of cervical cancer treatment for patients in North Carolina, focusing on the role of geographic distance in healthcare disparities. Analyzes data for insured cervical cancer patients from 2004-2013, taken from a state registry. Discusses the differences in time between diagnosis and completion of concurrent chemoradiotherapy between rural and urban patients.
Author(s): Lisa Spees, Wendy Brewster, Mahesh Varia, et al.
Citation: Cancer, Epidemiology, Biomarkers and Prevention, 28(5), 882-889
Date: 05/2019
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