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Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Policy

AHA Future of Rural Health Care Task Force: Final Recommendations
Presents the recommendations of the American Hospital Association Future of Rural Health Care Task Force, including innovation-based solutions and promising practices. Solutions include public-private funding changes for core services, flexible rural hospital infrastructure funding programs, creating a rural design center, and supporting grant writing services. Explores promising rural initiatives such as telemedicine, strategic partnerships, maternal health efforts, broadband investment, and rural philanthropy.
Date: 05/2021
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association
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5G Fund for Rural America
Provides an overview of Federal Communications Commission (FCC) efforts to expand universal service to include telecommunications and high-speed internet services. Describes the 5G Fund, how data will be collected, how funds will be awarded, and the two phases of the program.
Date: 05/2021
Sponsoring organization: Congressional Research Service
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Health Equity and COVID-19: The Impact of Rural Residence on COVID-19 Disparities
Policy brief discussing rural health disparities, social determinants of health, access to care, and COVID-19 impacts in rural Georgia. Compares rural and urban COVID-19 case and death rates, distribution of cases by race, and disparities in Black and Hispanic rural counties. Offers policy recommendations to address disparities.
Date: 05/2021
Sponsoring organization: Georgia Health Policy Center
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Broadband Data and Mapping: Background and Issues for the 117th Congress
Explores policy issues and challenges related to high-speed internet access, including federal agency roles in broadband mapping. Includes a section comparing urban and rural areas in terms of access to telecommunications and information technologies.
Date: 05/2021
Sponsoring organization: Congressional Research Service
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Law and Policy Pathways to Addressing Rising Youth Suicide Rates
Provides information on how to prevent death by suicide in different youth populations, including rural youth. Includes evidence-based suicide prevention strategies and ways to engage communities in prevention efforts.
Author(s): April Shaw
Date: 04/2021
Sponsoring organization: Network for Public Health Law
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Caring for American Indian and Alaska Native Children and Adolescents
Examines the influence of historical trauma and health inequities on the socioeconomic and health status of AI/AN youth. Discusses the disproportionate mental and cardiovascular health needs, and disease processes of AI/AN youth. Identifies strategies for culturally sensitive care to lessen morbidity, and makes policy recommendations supporting institutional and system changes for improving health outcomes.
Author(s): Shaquita Bell, Jason F. Deen, Molly Fuentes, et al.
Citation: Pediatrics, 147(4)
Date: 04/2021
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April 2021 MACPAC Meeting Transcript
Transcript from the Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission's (MACPAC) April 2021 meeting. Covers the review of draft chapters and recommendations regarding high-cost specialty drugs, improving integration through dual-eligible special needs plans (D-SNPs), access to mental health services for adults, access to behavioral health services for children and adolescents, electronic health records as a tool for behavioral health services integration, and the non-emergency medical transportation benefit. Also details lessons from states on rebalancing, ensuring quality in Medicaid and CHIP, and what states are learning from the expanded use of telehealth.
Date: 04/2021
Sponsoring organization: Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission
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April 2021 MedPAC Meeting Transcript
Transcript from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's (MedPAC) April 2021 meeting. Covers Medicare's skilled nursing facility value-based purchasing program and proposed replacement, streamlining CMS's portfolio of alternative payment models, rebalancing the Medicare Advantage benchmark policy, revising Medicare's indirect medical education payments to better reflect teaching hospital costs, Medicare vaccine coverage and payment, and improving Medicare's policies for separately payable drugs in the hospital outpatient prospective payment system. Includes a discussion of training rural physicians, among other rural references.
Date: 04/2021
Sponsoring organization: Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
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Access to Marketplace Plans with Low Premiums on the Federal Platform Part III: Availability among Current Healthcare.gov Enrollees under the American Rescue Plan
Analyzes access to federally-sponsored Health Insurance Marketplace low premium plans among current HealthCare.gov enrollees under the American Rescue Plan (ARP). Table 2 provides demographic data on zero- and low-premium plan availability for both pre- and post-ARP by rural status, age, income, and race/ethnicity. Includes enrollee data by state for zero- and low-premium plan availability for both pre- and post-ARP.
Author(s): D. Keith Branham, Ann B. Conmy, Thomas DeLeire, et al.
Date: 04/2021
Sponsoring organization: HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
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Access to Marketplace Plans with Low Premiums on the Federal Platform Part II: Availability among Uninsured Non-Elderly Adults under the American Rescue Plan
Analyzes the expanded access to federally-sponsored Health Insurance Marketplace low premium plans among eligible uninsured non-elderly adults under the American Rescue Plan (ARP). Table 2 provides demographic data on zero- and low-premium plan availability pre- and post-ARP by rural status, age, income, and race/ethnicity. Includes uninsured non-elderly adult data by state for zero- and low-premium plan availability for both pre- and post-ARP.
Author(s): D. Keith Branham, Ann B. Conmy, Thomas DeLeire, et al.
Date: 04/2021
Sponsoring organization: HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
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