- Rural America Faces Growing Shortage of Eye Surgeons
- NRHA Continues Partnership to Advance Rural Oral Health
- Comments Requested on Mobile Crisis Team Services: An Implementation Toolkit Draft
- Q&A: What Are the Challenges and Opportunities of Small-Town Philanthropy?
- HRSA Administrator Carole Johnson, Joined by Co-Chair of the Congressional Black Maternal Health Caucus Congresswoman Lauren Underwood, Announces New Funding, Policy Action, and Report to Mark Landmark Year of HRSA's Enhancing Maternal Health Initiative
- Biden-Harris Administration Announces $60 Million Investment for Adding Early Morning, Night, and Weekend Hours at Community Health Centers
- Volunteer Opportunity for HUD's Office of Housing Counseling Tribe and TDHE Certification Exam
- Who Needs Dry January More: Rural or Urban Drinkers?
- Rural Families Have 'Critical' Need for More Hospice, Respite Care
- States Help Child Care Centers Expand in Bid To Create More Slots, Lower Prices
- Rural Telehealth Sees More Policy Wins, but Only Short-Term
- Healing a Dark Past: The Long Road To Reopening Hospitals in the Rural South
- Study: Obstetrics Units in Rural Communities Declining
- Q&A: Angela Gonzales (Hopi), on New Indigenous Health Research Dashboard
- Not All Expectant Moms Can Reach a Doctor's Office. This Kentucky Clinic Travels to Them.
Ambulance Desert Report Highlights Severity in Rural Communities Â
The Maine Rural Health Research Center released its Ambulance Desert Chartbook. This chartbook analyzes 42 states in 2021-2022 and identifies places and people that are more than 25 minutes from an ambulance station, also called an ambulance desert. The report found that out of 4.5 million people living in an ambulance desert, 2.3 million (52%) were in rural counties. The reports also found that 84% of rural counties are an ambulance desert.
Congress Introduces Farmer Mental Health BillÂ
Sens. Baldwin (D-WI), Bennet (D-CO), and Ernst (R-IA), introduced S. 1736, the Farmers First Act of 2023, to address the mental health crisis in rural communities and expand access to mental health support for farmers and ranchers. This legislation reauthorizes the Farm and Ranch Stress Assistance Network (FRSAN) and provides additional funding to help agricultural workers access behavioral health specialists and services. NRHA is proud to endorse this legislation and supports expanding the network of rural providers to deliver critical services to farming and ranching populations.
293 Hospitals at Immediate Risk of Closure
There are 293 rural hospitals at immediate risk of closure due to inflation, staffing shortages and other financial stress, according to the Center for Healthcare Quality & Payment Reform.
Hospitals at immediate risk of closure have lost money on patient services for multiple years, excluding 2020 during the pandemic, and aren’t likely to receive sufficient funds to cover the losses with public assistance ending, according to the report. These hospitals also have low reserves and more debt than assets.
Click here to see the state-by-state list.
New 2020 Census Data Released
The U.S. Census Bureau released the 2020 Census Demographic and Characteristics File (DHC). These products provide the next round of data available from the 2020 Census, adding more detail to the population counts and basic demographic and housing statistics previously released.
This release includes population counts (total, by race and Hispanic ethnicity, age, and sex) as well as housing counts. These data are available through the U.S. Census Bureau’s data dissemination platform data.census.gov.
PA Census 2020 Data Portal
Today, in conjunction with the release of the 2020 DHC data, the PA State Data Center launched the Census 2020 Data Portal. The portal serves as a tool to host data localized to Pennsylvania and also provides guidance, overviews, and interactive reports/visualizations to help users make sense of the Census 2020 data.
View the portal at: https://census2020-pasdc.opendata.arcgis.com/
While you’re there, check out our latest dashboard and report which make DHC data for the state, counties, and municipalities easy to view!
This resource is a living catalog of data releases and supporting documentation and analysis from the U.S. Census Bureau and the PA State Data Center. Existing data, resources, and reports/visualizations, such as those for the Redistricting (P.L. 1994) data, have been added to the portal, and more will come soon!
Updated Coverage to Care Partner Resources Now Available
Coverage to Care has updated its partner resources! Now available on the C2C website, these materials are designed to help partners across the country share more information about C2C with their communities on how to make the most of their health coverage.
Coverage to Care is one of CMS OMH’s signature initiatives to help consumers understand their health coverage and connect them to the primary care and preventive services that are right for them. C2C offers resources to assist community partners in their outreach. Please be sure to use the newly updated C2C Partner Toolkit and presentation resources linked below!
Resources
- C2C Partner Toolkit provides prepared information and graphics for partners to use in their own emails, listservs, or social posts, as well as ideas on how to get started with health literacy in your community. Spanish coming soon!
- Updated C2C Community Presentation slide deck, a visual aid featuring the 8 Steps of the Roadmap to Better Care with prepared script and slides.
- C2C Presenter’s Guide (PDF) provides an overview of the C2C Community Presentation slide deck and tips for a better discussion.
- Accompanying Resources handout (PDF) with additional links to help with consumers’ health care journey.
Be sure to check out these and other resources on the C2C partner resources webpage.
To learn more about C2C, please visit go.cms.gov/c2c.
To continue receiving updates from about new C2C resources and programs, please sign up for our C2C listserv.
New Resource Launched: Kids Smiles Oral Health Toolkit
Kids Smiles recently launched the “Kids Smiles Oral Health Toolkit,” a digital resource for children, adults, families, educators, and others to learn about the importance of dental health and how to maintain a healthy smile for life. The toolkit includes videos, animations, infographics, downloadable lesson plans, and more. Resources are also
available in Spanish.
Implications of COVID-19 on Safety-Net Provider Oral Health Services
The Oral Health Workforce Research Center (OHWRC) published a new report, “Implications of COVID-19 on Safety-Net Oral Health Services.” The report examines the COVID-19 pandemic impacts on federally qualified health centers (FQHCs) and other safety-net dental providers, including those that offer oral health services through mobile and portable programs.
Compendium Released on Best Practice Approaches for Treating Veterans
The National Network for Oral Health Access (NNOHA) and the American Institute for Dental Public Health (AIDPH) released “A Compendium of Veteran Oral Health Best, Promising, and Emerging Practice Approaches.” This guide describes strategies to engage and serve veterans in the community for oral health care.
Pennsylvania Department of Health Seeks Oral Health Plan Advisory Group Nominations
The Pennsylvania Department of Health (DOH) is accepting nominations and applications of dynamic oral health stakeholders to represent one of the nine sectors listed in the Pennsylvania Oral Health Plan 2020-2030 to serve on the Pennsylvania Oral Health Plan Advisory Group (OHPAG).
To nominate a candidate, or yourself, for the OHPAG, please download the application, complete, and send it along with a resume and/or CV to janmille@pa.gov.
The application deadline is June 5th, 2023. Selected members will be notified via email in July 2023. If you or your organization would like to endorse someone, please send an email to include with the person’s nomination. Additional information can be found at the links below.
Click here to download the nomination form.
Click here to download the group guidelines.
New CMS Report Released: Disparities in Health Care in Medicare Advantage Associated with Dual Eligibility or Eligibility for a Low-Income Subsidy and Disability
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services’ Office of Minority Health (CMS OMH) released a report detailing the quality of care received by people enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA).
The Disparities in Health Care in Medicare Advantage Associated with Dual Eligibility or Eligibility for a Low-Income Subsidy and Disability report presents summary information on the performance of Medicare Advantage plans on specific measures of quality of health care reported in 2021, which corresponds to care received in 2020. Specifically, this report compares the quality of care for four groups of Medicare Advantage enrollees that are defined based on the combination of two characteristics: (1) dual eligibility for Medicare and Medicaid or eligibility for a Part D Low-Income Subsidy (LIS) and (2) disability.
Overall, the report showed that people who were dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid or eligible for the Low-Income Subsidy received worse clinical care than those who were not. The largest differences between the two groups were in the areas of Follow-up After Hospital Stay for Mental Illness (within 30 days of discharge), Avoiding Potentially Harmful Drug-Disease Interactions in Elderly Patients with Dementia, and Avoiding Potentially Harmful Drug-Disease Interactions in Elderly Patients with a History of Falls. Disparities by dual eligibility status/Low-Income Subsidy eligibility status were least common among Hispanic individuals and most common among White individuals. The report also shows more pronounced disparities in clinical care for dually eligible/Low-Income Subsidy eligible individuals in urban areas as compared to rural areas.
This report is based on an analysis of data from the Healthcare Effectiveness Data and Information Set (HEDIS). HEDIS collects information from medical records and administrative data on the technical quality of care that Medicare Advantage enrollees receive for a variety of medical issues, including diabetes, cardiovascular disease, and chronic lung disease.
Health care professionals, organizations, researchers, and hospital leaders can utilize this report along with other CMS tools and resources to help raise awareness of health disparities, develop health care interventions for Medicare Advantage enrollees who are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid/Low- Income Subsidy eligible and those with disabilities, and implement quality improvement efforts that improve health equity.
Help CMS to advance equity by sharing this report and our resources on prevention and health equity initiatives. Also, sign up for our listserv or visit https://go.cms.gov/omh for more information.