Forty-three rural hospitals, with more than 1,500 beds among them, have closed since 2010, with the pace of closures accelerating each year, according to North Carolina Rural Health Research Program data in USA Today.
While just three rural hospitals closed in 2010, 13 closed in 2010 and 12 have closed in 2014 with six weeks left to go in the year.
While hospital closures are spread throughout the country, hospitals in the southern United States have been hit the hardest, with Georgia and Alabama each losing five hospitals and Texas losing six hospitals since 2010.
Closure of these hospitals sends the impact rippling through the communities served. Not only do hospital employees lose their jobs and patients must go a long way to seek care, but things like urgent care and emergency services also suffer, leading to increased probabilities of death or disability from injury or illness, according to the report.
While partnering with larger systems may keep rural hospitals alive, this may not be feasible for some smaller facilities, as larger systems invest more in outpatient care, and purchasing another inpatient facility falls more and more out of line with larger systems' strategic plans, according to the report.
Reimbursement cuts as well as stricter healthcare regulations are particularly challenging for rural hospitals, according to the report.
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