Tag Archives: rural hospitals

Closing health care gaps in rural America

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Katti Gray, AHCJ’s core topic leader on mental health, moderates “Building the rural health care pipeline” panel at Rural Health Journalism Workshop 2022. Panelists Leslie Griffin, M.D., program director of family medicine residency at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga and Lisa D. Beasley, D.N.P., A.P.R.N., N.P.-C., R.N., assistant professor at the University of Tennessee Health Science Center and president of the Tennessee Nurses Association, are sitting to the right of the podium.

Imagine driving an hour for a colonoscopy. Because of limited access to health care, that’s the harsh reality for many people living in rural communities, said Leslie Griffin, M.D., program director of family medicine residency at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine Chattanooga, during the “How to build a rural health pipeline” panel at AHCJ’s Rural Health Workshop 2022 in Chattanooga, Tenn.

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Managing Editor Erica Tricarico is a graduate of Howard University and the master’s program in journalism at CUNY. Tricarico comes to AHCJ from MJH Life Sciences in Cranbury, N.J., where she managed an editorial team producing content on animal care. Before that, she was a freelance health care reporter for Everyday Health.

Hospitals, HHS each scored a win and a loss in recent Supreme Court cases

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Photo by Geoff Livingston via Flickr.

Amid issuing some of the most significant rulings this century, the U.S. Supreme Court (SCOTUS) also decided on two cases where certain hospitals challenged federal decisions that cost them money. 

Hospitals scored one win and one loss in these cases. Both cases involved Department of Health and Humans Services (HHS) policies created under Republican presidents that the Biden administration sought to defend. 

In Health and Human Services Secretary (HHS) Becerra v. Empire Health Foundation, the Supreme Court split 5-4 in a June 24 decision about a calculation used to decide which hospitals qualify for extra pay for serving many people with low incomes. The Supreme Court found in favor of HHS in this case, disappointing hospital groups.

On June 15 in the American Hospital Association (AHA) v. Becerra case, the Court said in a unanimous decision that HHS erred in the administrative procedures in cutting reimbursement on certain drugs. In this case, the Biden administration had defended a Trump administration bid to compel hospitals to share certain savings they get on medicines with Medicare and people enrolled in the program.

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Kerry Dooley Young is an independent journalist and AHCJ's core topic leader on patient safety. Joseph Burns, a Massachusetts-based independent journalist, is AHCJ’s topic leader on health reform.

Why do rural hospitals close and what does it mean to communities?

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Image by Bob Harwigvia Flickr.

Image by Bob Harwig via Flickr.

Jayne O’Donnell and Laura Ungar had an interesting story recently in USA Today about rural hospital closures.

The pace of closures has picked up in the past few years; the hospitals blame readmission penalties under the ACA, inadequate federal reimbursement policies, and the mandate to switch to costly electronic health records.

It’s also clear that the problem is more widespread in the states that have not expanded Medicaid, such as Georgia and Alabama.

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Contributing editor to Politico Magazine and former health care editor-at-large, Politico, Commonwealth Fund journalist in residence and assistant lecturer at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.