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Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Policy

Second Annual Report: HCIA Disease-Specific Evaluation
Second annual evaluations of 18 Health Care Innovation Awards Round One projects targeting patient populations with specific diseases. Discusses experiences common across grantees and profiles each project. Includes projects that serve a variety of rural areas and address conditions such as diabetes, cancer, cardiovascular disease, and chronic pain. Approaches discussed include care coordination, education, and telehealth.
Date: 03/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, NORC at the University of Chicago
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Evaluation of the Health Care Innovation Awards: Community Resource Planning, Prevention, and Monitoring: Second Annual Report
Second annual evaluations of 24 Health Care Innovation Awards Round One projects focused on enhancing care coordination and healthcare access through the use of health information technology, care coordination/patient navigation, and health promotion and prevention services. Discusses project impacts and challenges common across grantees. Includes profiles of 5 rural-focused projects, as well as projects serving rural and urban areas.
Date: 03/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, RTI International
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HCIA Complex/High-Risk Patient Targeting: Second Annual Report
Second annual evaluations of 23 Health Care Innovation Awards Round One projects focused on patients with medically complex conditions at high risk for hospitalization, re-hospitalization, emergency department visits, or nursing home stays. Several projects serve rural areas, offering caregiver education and support, telehealth services, and various care coordination approaches. Discusses common experiences of grantees serving rural areas, as well as profiles of each project.
Date: 03/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, NORC at the University of Chicago
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Evaluating the HCIA - Behavioral Health/Substance Abuse Awards: Second Annual Report
Second annual evaluations of 10 Health Care Innovation Awards Round One projects focused on mental health and substance abuse services. Offers overviews of all projects, including HealthLinkNow, which uses telehealth to provide behavioral care services in rural areas, and the Prevention and Recovery in Early Psychosis Program, which was expanded to serve to rural counties in California.
Date: 03/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Mathematica Policy Research
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MedPAC Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy, 2016
Annual review of Medicare payment policies, with recommendations to Congress. Discussions of rural aspects of Medicare payment policies are included throughout the report. Focuses on payment adequacy, Medicare Advantage, and Medicare Part D.
Date: 03/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
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Responsive Rural Health Delivery Systems
Policy brief discussing how rural healthcare delivery systems can address current challenges while transitioning to value-based care. Offers recommendations for creating a high-performance rural healthcare system based on five critical factors as defined by the Rural Policy Research Institute's Rural Health Panel: affordability, accessibility, community-focused, high quality, and patient-centered.
Author(s): Brandon Baumbach, Sue Deitz, Maria Poepsel
Date: 02/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Rural Health Association
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American Indian and Alaska Native Health
Identifies and discusses the adverse health issues affecting the health status of American Indian and Alaska Native populations. Offers policy recommendations to address these issues.
Additional links: Supplemental Document
Author(s): Linda Bane Frizzell, Kathleen Spencer
Date: 02/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Rural Health Association
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Rural Public Health
Policy paper discussing the critical need for public health services to positively impact the current health issues contributing to health disparities in rural communities. Offers recommendations to address the lack of adequate public health services by developing partnerships, supporting public health education and training, and strengthening communication and technology systems.
Author(s): Christine M. Eisenhauer, Michael Meit
Date: 02/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Rural Health Association
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A Special Governors' Roundtable: State and County Collaboration to Tackle Chronic Rural Poverty
Video recording of a bi-partisan panel of governors at the National Association of Counties' Annual Meeting discussing issues surrounding childhood poverty in rural America. Focuses on the Rural Impact Challenge, a collaborative effort between county, state, and national leaders to fight rural poverty. Includes discussion of substance abuse prevention and treatment, job creation, economic development, situational and inter-generational poverty, and food insecurity. USDA Secretary Tom Vilsack moderated the panel, which included governors from Tennessee, Virginia, Pennsylvania, and Utah and took place February 22, 2016.
Date: 02/2016
Type: Video/Multimedia
Sponsoring organization: National Association of Counties
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Entry Regulation and Rural Health Care: Certificate-of-Need Laws, Ambulatory Surgical Centers, and Community Hospitals
Examines the effect of regulations on entry and expansion of "hospital substitutes," including ambulatory surgical centers (ASCs), and analyzes whether certificate-of-need (CON) programs have achieved their goal of protecting access to hospitals in rural areas. Features demographics on ASC patients, and state-level information on CON regulations and requirements for ASCs.
Date: 02/2016
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Mercatus Center
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