This resource from the National Rural Health Resource Center provides guidance and assistance to state Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) Program personnel, leaders of Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), and others helping CAHs manage long-term financial stability.

The Rural Health Research Program at the University of North Carolina (UNC) compiles a list of all hospitals operating in the U.S. as a downloadable resource to the public.  The newest list has all acute care and specialty hospitals that were open as of January 1, 2023, including their addresses, bed counts, rural/urban definitions, CMS rural payment designations (Critical Access Hospitals, Rural Health Clinics, Rural Emergency Hospitals), and more.  The UNC research center also keeps a running list of rural hospital closures since January 2005.

– Federal legislation under Section 126 the Consolidation Appropriation Act, 2021 authorizes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to distribute additional residency positions (also known as slots) for physician training. RuralGME.org, the FORHP-supported organization that helps hospitals plan and develop rural residencies, has published an analysis of CMS released data on the 109 hospitals that received residency slots via the third round of Section 126 distributions on November 21, 2024. This analysis builds on FORHP’s previous examination of first and second round awardees and uses newly released CMS data to identify the rural status of the training sites of the selected residency programs. The application period for the next round of Medicare-funded slots opened the first week of January and runs through March 31, 2025. Eligible hospitals must use MEARIS, CMS’s online application system to apply for 200 newly available Section 126 slots and the 200 Section 4122 slots. The application period for Medicare-funded slots opened the first week of January and runs through March 31, 2025.

 The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Shared Savings Program Fast Facts, updates data on provider and beneficiary participation in an accountable care organization (ACO). An ACO is a group of healthcare providers that work together to coordinate care for Medicare patients. As of January 2025, 53.4 percent of beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare are enrolled in an accountable care relationship with a provider participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center) accountable care models. In MSSP, the number of rural and safety net providers has grown since last year.  There are now 2,872 Rural Health Clinics, 547 Critical Access Hospitals, and 7,036 Federally Qualified Health Centers participating.

– Ongoing.  Through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) supports technical assistance for rural hospitals to identify and address local health care needs and strengthen health care systems.  The overall goal of the program is to enhance hospital systems for improved efficiency and financial performance, bolster quality of care, and support communities.

The Economic Research Service (ERS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regularly updates data on population, income, poverty, food security, education, employment/unemployment, farm characteristics, farm financial indicators, and agricultural exports for all states and includes breakouts for rural and metropolitan areas.  County-level Data Sets include poverty estimates, unemployment, and median household income.  A separate ERS report examines the Trends and Patterns of Job Quality in the United States, including wages, employer sponsored health insurance coverage, and retirement benefits between 2000 and 2022.

The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) are amending their regulations to expand the circumstances under which practitioners registered by the Drug Enforcement Administration are authorized to prescribe schedule III-V controlled substances approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of opioid use disorder via telemedicine, including an audio-only telemedicine encounter. Under these new regulations, after a practitioner reviews the patient’s prescription drug monitoring program data for the state in which the patient is located, the practitioner may prescribe an initial six-month supply of such medications (split amongst several prescriptions totaling six calendar months) through audio-only means.

The Wright Center for Community Heath’s Clarks Summit and Mid Valley locations have learned national recognition from the National Committee for Quality Assurance for delivering top-quality, patient-centered care. Read more about the recognition.

Block grants, per Capita Medicaid funding, choices to expand Medicaid eligibility but receive less federal support, and Medicaid Work Requirements were hallmarks of the American Health Care Act which passed in the US House but failed in the US Senate in 2017. Per capita caps are fixed amounts of money per person enrolled in Medicaid that may or may not cover the cost of care. Block grants are a single lump sum to cover Medicaid expenses regardless of enrollment or cost of care. While some states have explored additional mechanisms to reduce the number of recipients by not expanding Medicaid to those in the coverage gap between 100% and 138% of the Federal Poverty Guidelines, more than 40 states have Medicaid Expansion, including Pennsylvania, with more almost 750,000 enrollees. Under the ACA, the federal government paid 100% of the cost of Medicaid expansion coverage from 2014 to 2016, with the federal share then dropping gradually to 90% for 2020 and each year thereafter, leaving states to cover the small remaining share. In 2014, Pennsylvania floated the idea of work requirements with gradual loss of coverage in year 2 if recipients were non-compliant, a mix of eligibility exemptions for special circumstances, and a 20-hour per week of work or 12 hours of job training. In 2018, analysts estimated work requirements would cost Pennsylvania Taxpayers 3.4 billion dollars over 6 years and would result in 85,000 consumers losing health coverage. With the current inflation rate, the cost would be over $4.2 billion and put more than 1.2 million at risk of losing coverage.  Pennsylvania has 2.9 million enrollees in Medicaid with 42% children and 33% representing people with disabilities, and pregnant women.