The Joint Commission is working to improve access to healthcare for people who reside in rural areas of the country by helping hospitals to better meet CMS requirements.
Jonathan Perlin, MD, PhD, president and CEO of The Joint Commission, said, "Our work is not done in rural America," during a June 19 episode of the University of Nebraska Medical Center's "Rural Health Matters" program, which aired on RFD-TV.
He said there are disparities between the "quality of outcomes and the experience of care between some of the more urban settings and our most rural settings."
Watch the interview with Dr. Perlin here.
The Joint Commission is in a position to act as an intermediary, Dr. Perlin said, when it comes to helping rural healthcare facilities meet CMS requirements for Medicare and Medicaid coverage.
Hospitals "can't participate in those programs unless [they] meet certain government requirements, and we're the organization that makes sure that those requirements are met, as well as requirements that we add that really are focused on the very best practices at any given time in terms of safety and quality," Dr. Perlin said.
Residents of rural areas have poor geographic access to healthcare, are less likely to have health insurance and receive fewer employer-provided medical benefits, according to the seventh annual consumer healthcare study released in 2020 by Transamerica Center for Health Studies.
While 20 percent of people in the United States live in rural areas with less-than-optimal access to medical care, 69 percent of rural residents believe they are in "good or excellent" health, according to the study. At the same time, urban (80 percent) and suburban (78 percent) residents describe their health as good or excellent.