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Rural Healthcare Payment and Reimbursement – Resources

Selected recent or important resources focusing on Rural Healthcare Payment and Reimbursement.

Rural Health System Value-Based Care Innovators Roundtable: Strategies and Insights
Presents findings from interviews with five health systems that include a substantial proportion of rural hospitals and clinics and actively support the transition to value-based care. Covers organizational structure, governance and decision-making, operations, data and communication, contracts, and social determinants of health. Identifies common health system tensions and opportunities to implementing value-based care at rural facilities.
Date: 10/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Value
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Landscape of Area-Level Deprivation Measures and Other Approaches to Account for Social Risk and Social Determinants of Health in Health Care Payments
Examines social determinants of health (SDOH) at the community level and their impact on health-related social needs (HRSNs) of the individual. Discusses how policies related to federal payment systems can incentivize screening for HRSNs as well as referrals to appropriate social and behavioral services. Provides an environmental scan of what measures can be used to provide accountability for funding and policy efforts targeted at SDOH. Includes an appendix that defines and describes indices of social risk, such as the social vulnerability index (SVI) and area deprivation index (ADI), as well as payment models that include measures of social risk.
Author(s): Joshua Breslau, Laurie Martin, Justin Timbie, Nabeel Qureshi, Deborah Zajdman
Date: 09/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: HHS Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation, RAND Corporation
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Health Panel Comment Letter – Medicare Advantage Program
Offers comments in response to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Request for Information on various aspects of the Medicare Advantage (MA) program. Presents a rural perspective on the MA program and discusses health equity in the MA program, expanding access to care, and value-based contracting. Includes data on the proportion of MA plans offering supplemental benefits in noncore, micropolitan, and metropolitan counties in 2020.
Date: 08/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Policy Research Institute Rural Health Panel
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Synthesis of Evaluation Results across 21 Medicare Models, 2012-2020
Summarizes results from evaluations of 21 Centers for Medicare & Medicaid (CMS) Innovation Center models. Examines measures related to gross and net Medicare spending, utilization, and quality of care. Identifies themes among models with similar participant types and interventions used. Offers considerations for acute or specialty care and targeted populations models and prevention and population management models.
Additional links: Findings at a Glance, Synthesis of Evaluation Results Across 21 Medicare Models Slides, Transcript, Webinar Recording
Date: 07/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
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Report to Congress: Unified Payment for Medicare-Covered Post-Acute Care
Presents a prototype for a Unified Post-acute Care (PAC) prospective payment system (PPS) that would set payment for PAC services on the basis of the clinical characteristics of the patient rather than the type of provider. Details the structure of the prototype and the data used in the analyses to design and calibrate the PPS. Explores key considerations for unifying PAC payment, such as cost-sharing and value-based payment. Includes data on PAC provider characteristics, including facility size and rural status, as well as rural payment adjustments.
Additional links: Appendices
Author(s): Benjamin Silver, Anne Deutsch, Nicole Coomer, et al.
Date: 07/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, RTI International
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State Innovation Model Testing Awards from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center: Highlighting Rural Focus
Summarizes the activities and accomplishments of rural-specific State Innovation Models (SIM) in 11 states: Arkansas, Colorado, Idaho, Iowa, Maine, Michigan, Minnesota, New York, Ohio, Oregon, and Vermont. Describes the SIM initiative, which began in 2012 to support states committed to designing and testing strategies for payment model and delivery system reform.
Date: 06/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Value
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Let's Get a Good Deal on Health Care
Explains the challenges rural hospitals face with current payment systems and the potential that value-based payment holds for meeting rural communities' needs.
Author(s): A. Clinton MacKinney
Citation: Rural Monitor
Date: 05/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Information Hub
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The Role of Social Determinants of Health in Value-Based Payment Models During COVID-19: An Evolving Rural Perspective
Recording of an April 2022 webinar discussing how some rural health providers address social determinants of health in their communities and mitigate hardships associated with COVID-19. Highlights strategies using value-based payment models and collaboration with community partners. Transcript is available in the video description.
Additional links: Presentation Slides
Author(s): Alana Knudson
Date: 04/2022
Type: Video/Multimedia
Sponsoring organizations: National Rural Health Resource Center, NORC Walsh Center for Rural Health Analysis
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Medicare's Prospective Payment System for Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities at 15 Years
Examine how Medicare enrollees' use of inpatient psychiatric facility (IPF) services and the characteristics of IPFs have changed since the introduction of the IPF-PPS in 2005. Explores whether there have been changes in events that occur before or after IPF stays that may indicate potential changes in the quality of services. Includes information on per diem costs for rural IPFs compared to urban facilities.
Date: 04/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Medicare Payment Advisory Commission, Urban Institute
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Medicaid Coverage of Community Health Worker Services
Provides an overview of types of community health workers (CHWs) and the services they provide. Summarizes studies examining the effects of CHW programs on health outcomes and costs. Discusses state approaches to covering CHW services through Medicaid, including the services covered, regulatory authorities used to provide Medicaid payment, the populations served, and training and certification requirements.
Date: 04/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission
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Last Updated: 6/17/2024