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Rural Hospitals – Resources

Selected recent or important resources focusing on Rural Hospitals.

Changes in Service Offerings Post-System Affiliation in Rural Hospitals
Explores the effects of joining or leaving a regional or national healthcare system on 62 service offerings at rural prospective payment system (PPS) hospitals and Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) between 2008 through 2020. Compares services offered at hospitals that joined a system, left a system, were always in a system during the study period, and were never is a system during the study period.
Date: 01/2023
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis
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Community Sociodemographics and Rural Hospital Survival
Explores differences in specific community-level sociodemographic factors associated with the survival or closure of rural hospitals at risk of financial distress between 2010 and 2019. Examines the relationship between the risk of hospital closure and median family income, unemployment rate, uninsured rate, education, race, and more.
Author(s): Claudia A. Rhoades, Brian E. Whitacre, Alison F. Davis
Citation: Journal of Rural Health, 2023(39), 643-655
Date: 2023
Type: Document
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Evaluation of the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration: Interim Report Two (Covering 2016-2018)
Provides an overview of the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration (RCHD). Describes the characteristics of RCHD participants as of fiscal year 2018, the Medicare payments received under the program, and the impact of the RCHD on hospital financial measures. Examines whether hospitals that continued to participate in the RCHD under the 21st Century Cures Act (CCA) extension experienced additional changes to their financial condition, as well as the impact of the program on hospitals that joined the demonstration for the first time under the CCA extension.
Additional links: Findings at a Glance
Date: 12/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: American Institutes for Research, Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services
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The Evolution of Hospital Designations and Payment in the U.S.: Implications for Rural Hospitals
Provides a history and overview of Medicare hospital payment polices as well as alternative payment models and their impact on rural facilities. Discusses the context in which rural hospitals serve patients, rural hospital payment provisions and designations, and current federal payment models that impact rural hospitals.
Author(s): Onyinye Oyeka, Clinton MacKinney, Keith J. Mueller
Date: 12/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Policy Research Institute Rural Health Panel
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Federal Support for Financially Distressed Hospitals
Provides an overview of Medicare hospital payments and federal funding opportunities to assist financially distressed hospitals. Includes information on COVID-19 relief funding targeted to rural and safety net hospitals.
Date: 12/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Congressional Research Service
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Factors Associated with Compliance to the Hospital Price Transparency Final Rule: A National Landscape Study
Examines 3,558 short-term acute-care hospitals' compliance with the Hospital Price Transparency Rule, which requires that hospitals publicly post a machine-readable file containing commercial negotiated prices for 300 services. Compares hospital compliance by state and hospital referral region. Describes factors associated with compliance, including health information technology preparedness, profit status, system affiliation, hospital size, and rural location.
Author(s): John Xuefeng Jiang, Daniel Polsky, Jeff Littlejohn, et al.
Citation: Journal of General Internal Medicine, 37(14), 3577–3584
Date: 11/2022
Type: Document
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Rural Medicare Beneficiaries are Increasingly Likely to Be Admitted to Urban Hospitals
Examines whether the proportion of rural Medicare fee-for-service beneficiaries admitted to urban hospitals increased between 2010 and 2018 using data from the Hospital Service Area File (HSAF) and the American Hospital Association (AHA) survey. Explores whether distance to the nearest hospital and system affiliation of the nearest rural hospital were associated with increases in urban hospital admissions from rural ZIP codes.
Author(s): Hannah R. Friedman, George Mark Holmes
Citation: Health Services Research, 57(5), 1029-1034
Date: 10/2022
Type: Document
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Factors Predicting Swing Bed Versus Skilled Nursing Facility Use
Examines differences between patients discharged to swing beds versus skilled nursing facilities (SNFs). Features statistics on discharge disposition of people from rural Critical Access Hospital (CAH) and Prospective Payment System (PPS) hospitals, characteristics of people discharged to swing beds or SNFs, with breakdowns by rural CAH discharges and rural PPS discharges, and hospitalization type for discharges to swing beds or SNFs. Includes the 10 most common diagnostic categories for discharges to swing beds or SNFs.
Author(s): Tyler Malone, Mark Holmes
Date: 10/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: North Carolina Rural Health Research Program
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Rural Health Research Recap: Maternal Health Disparities: An Intersection of Race and Rurality
Summarizes recent research from Rural Health Research Centers examining the loss of hospital-based obstetric services and racial/ethnic disparities surrounding maternal and infant health. Features statistics on percent of counties which lost obstetric services from 2014-2018 with breakdowns by 4 levels of population density, annual births at hospitals providing obstetric services from 2010-2018 by rurality, percent of rural counties without obstetric services in 2019, and rates of preterm birth by race/ethnicity and rurality from 2012-2018.
Author(s): Per Ostmo, Jessica Rosencrans
Date: 10/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Health Research Gateway
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Maternal Health: Availability of Hospital-Based Obstetric Care in Rural Areas
Explores the availability of hospital-based obstetric services in rural areas. Summarizes stakeholder perspectives on the factors affecting the availability of these services and on the efforts federal agencies, states, and others could take to increase the access to obstetric care. Highlights six programs identified by researchers and provider associations as effective at increasing obstetric care in rural areas.
Additional links: Full Report
Date: 10/2022
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Government Accountability Office
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Last Updated: 10/16/2024