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Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Reimbursement and payment models

What Would Shifting To A Single-Dose HPV Vaccine Mean For Health And Access?
Discusses the potential impact of single-dose human papilloma virus (HPV) vaccines on health disparities for rural residents, lower socioeconomic status patients, men, and sexual and gender minorities. Discusses relief of cost barriers for health systems and vaccine shortages.
Author(s): Matthew Najarian, Amanda F. Petrik
Citation: Health Affairs Forefront
Date: 04/2024
Type: Document
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Evaluation of the Maryland Total Cost of Care Model: Progress Report
Provides an overview of the Maryland Total Cost of Care Model and evaluates the first four years of the program, 2019-2022. Explores the effects of the model on Medicare spending; service use, including preventable hospital use; and healthcare quality measures. Estimates the potential impact of switching Maryland to the Medicare prospective payment system (PPS) on Medicare spending and service use, including implications for rural and safety net hospitals.
Additional links: Appendices, Findings at a Glance, Transformation Spotlight
Date: 04/2024
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, Mathematica
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Medicare Payment for Rural or Geographically Isolated Hospitals
Displays data on Medicare payment adjustments for Sole Community Hospitals, Medicare-Dependent Hospitals, Low-Volume Hospitals, and Critical Access Hospitals. Includes information on the number of qualifying hospitals by state and eligibility criteria.
Date: 04/2024
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Congressional Research Service
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Community Health Centers and Value-Based Payment
Discusses the role of Federally Qualified Health Centers and Rural Health Clinics, alternative payment models, and the challenges with implementing value-based payment.
Author(s): Janet Weiner
Date: 04/2024
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: University of Pennsylvania Leonard Davis Institute of Health Economics
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Dental Therapy Resource Guide
Describes the role of dental therapists in expanding access to dental health care in rural and underserved communities. Outlines the status of state laws and regulations regarding dental therapy education and practice as of August 2021. Compares the scope of practice of dental therapists to other dental care providers.
Date: 04/2024
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: National Association of Community Health Centers
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Primary Care Spending in Medicare Fee-for-Service: An Illustrative Analysis Using Alternative Definitions of Primary Care
Discusses the importance of primary care to promote positive health outcomes and how reimbursement rates illustrate what healthcare areas are given priority. Utilizes Medicare fee-for-service data to estimate primary care spending and provides data breakdowns according to sex, race, age, insurance status, rural versus urban location, and more.
Date: 03/2024
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation
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Environmental Scan on Developing and Implementing Performance Measures for Population-Based Total Cost of Care (PB-TCOC) Models
Presents results of an environmental scan regarding the development and implementation of population-based total cost of care (PB-TCOC) payment models. Describes types of performance measures used in value-based payment models and pay-for-reporting programs, data sources used for constructing performance measures, features of PB-TCOC models, challenges in developing and implementing performance measures and opportunities for Alternative Payment Models (APMs) and PB-TCOC models to address these challenges, trends in existing performance measures across several Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) models and Medicare value-based care programs, and more. Includes rural references and considerations throughout.
Date: 03/2024
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, NORC at the University of Chicago
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March 2024 MedPAC Meeting Transcript
Transcript from the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's (MedPAC) March 2024 meeting. Covers proposed approaches and research topics related to evaluating rural hospital and clinician payment policies, an assessment of the completeness of Medicare Advantage (MA) encounter data and other sources of information about MA enrollees' healthcare utilization, a preliminary analysis of MA quality, the Acute Hospital Care at Home program, and Medicare inpatient psychiatric service trends and issues.
Additional links: Rural Hospital and Clinician Payment Policy: A Workplan for 2024–2025 - Presentation Slides
Date: 03/2024
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
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Report to Congress on Medicaid and CHIP, March 2024
Reports on three aspects of Medicaid of interest to Congress: 1) improving the Medicaid beneficiary experience through Medical Care Advisory Committees (MCACs) and federal government actions to aid states, 2) increasing the transparency and improving the monitoring of the denials and appeals process in Medicaid managed care, and 3) reviewing hospital payment policy for the nation's safety-net hospitals. Chapter 3 examines the relationship between disproportionate share hospital (DSH) allotments to states and the number of uninsured individuals, the amounts and sources of hospitals' uncompensated care costs, and the amounts and sources of hospitals' uncompensated care costs. Table 3-1 details DSH spending for urban and rural hospitals and for Critical Access Hospitals.
Date: 03/2024
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission
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MedPAC Report to the Congress: Medicare Payment Policy: Mandated Report: Rural Emergency Hospitals: Chapter 15
Provides an overview of the Rural Emergency Hospital (REH) designation. Discusses the evolution of Medicare's support for rural hospitals through payment policies and the impact of declining inpatient volumes on rural hospitals' financial sustainability. Describes the characteristics of hospitals that converted to REH status in 2023, the first year of the designation.
Date: 03/2024
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Medicare Payment Advisory Commission
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