Rural hospitals face a myriad of challenges and their financial situation has only gotten more difficult since the COVID-19 pandemic.
Here are seven recent rural hospital updates Becker's has reported on since Feb. 10:
- Twice-closed Bowie (Texas) Memorial Hospital is reopening as a freestanding emergency room. Rural hospitals around the country can become eligible for higher Medicare reimbursement rates if they focus on emergency care and remove other services.
- More rural hospitals are ending their maternity care services. From 2015 to 2019, at least 89 obstetric units at rural hospitals closed.
- A partnership between Atlanta-based Children's Healthcare of Atlanta and Macon, Ga.-based Mercer University School of Medicine is creating a $200 million fund designed to improve pediatric care in rural Georgia.
- A report from the Kaiser Family Foundation revealed that rural hospitals suffered worse margins in states that had not expanded Medicaid.
- More than a dozen of Alabama's 51 rural hospitals are at immediate risk of closure.
- Following a series of painful cuts, rural Craig, Colo.-based Memorial Regional Health was able to make it back from having zero cash on hand to nearly two months in reserves.
- With COVID-19 pandemic era relief coming to an end, a new report from healthcare advisory firm the Chartis Group showed that 43 percent of rural hospitals have negative operating margins.