A National Priority Agenda to Advance Health Equity Through System Transformation: The Health Equity Task Force for Delivery and Payment Transformation’s Top 19 Recommendations for 2019 and Beyond
Provides policy recommendations to help address health inequities for rural communities, people of color, people with disabilities, and others. Recommendations focus on the health workforce, healthcare safety net, payment systems, incentivizing community partnerships, and research and data measures supporting equitable, evidence-based medicine.
Author(s): Sinsi Hernández-Cancio, Ellen Albritton, Eliot Fishman, Denisse Sanchez
Date: 12/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Families USA
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Arkansas Medicaid Program Overview SFY 2017
Provides an overview of Arkansas's Medicaid program, including county-level data on enrolled and participating providers, program enrollees, Medicaid expenditures, and waiver beneficiaries on pages 32-35.
Date: 12/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Arkansas Department of Health
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Private Health Insurance in Georgia
Describes trends in private health insurance coverage in Georgia. Addresses the demographics of who is covered, cost, and whether it is purchased individually or obtained through an employer. Highlights differences between rural and urban areas.
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Georgia Health Policy Center
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The Rural Hospital and Health System Affiliation Landscape - A Brief Review
Describes choices available to rural hospitals and health systems when considering affiliations with urban-based hospitals, examines motivations for these affiliations, and presents a list of some affiliation structures with examples. Features statistics showing trends in hospital system affiliation by census region from 2007-2016, with breakdowns by metropolitan and nonmetropolitan hospitals and nonmetropolitan Critical Access Hospitals.
Author(s): Onyinye Oyeka, Fred Ullrich, A. Clinton MacKinney, Joseph Lupica, Keith J. Mueller
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural Policy Research Institute
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Sources of Supplemental Coverage Among Medicare Beneficiaries in 2016
Examines sources of supplemental coverage for traditional Medicare beneficiaries with breakdowns by race/ethnicity, income, rural location, and more.
Author(s): Juliette Cubanski, Anthony Damico, Tricia Neuman, Gretchen Jacobson
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Kaiser Family Foundation
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Significant Vulnerabilities Exist in the Hospital Wage Index System for Medicare Payments
Reports on 41 examinations of wage data of individual acute care hospitals from 2004 to 2017 to describe significant vulnerabilities observed in the wage index system for Medicare payments. Includes discussion on the rural floor wage index and the effects it has on wage index accuracy. Offers recommendations to reform the hospital wage index system.
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Office of Inspector General (HHS)
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Update: Rural/Urban Disparities in Pneumococcal Vaccine Service Delivery Among the Fee-for-Service Medicare Population, 2012-2015
Updated report on a study to identify disparities in vaccine provision to people ages 65 and over, and to assess the impact of pharmacies as alternate site providers in rural areas. Revised version specifically assesses the uptake of the 13-valent pneumococcal conjugate vaccine, in response to the revised vaccination recommendations issued in 2014. Includes statistics on pneumococcal vaccine services provided by fee-for-service pharmacies and primary care providers, with breakdowns by rural and urban frequency, and state-level maps with rate of service delivery per eligible population, using 2014 and 2015 data.
Author(s): Joseph C. Vanghelof, Aric Schadler, Patricia R. Freeman, Jeffery C. Talbert
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Rural and Underserved Health Research Center
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Why Are the Health Insurance Marketplaces Thriving in Some States but Struggling in Others?
Analyzes the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's HIX Compare dataset and the National Association of Insurance Commissioners' 2010 Supplemental Health Care Exhibit Report to identify factors explaining differences in issuers' participation in state insurance marketplaces. Features statistics including the number of insurers participating in states in 2017, with breakdowns by mean state population and rural population as percent of total state population.
Author(s): Jon R. Gabel, Heidi Whitmore, Sam Stromberg, Matthew Green
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: Commonwealth Fund
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Changes to the Merit-based Incentive Payment System Pertinent to Small and Rural Practices, 2018
Describes the importance of legislative changes to the Merit-based Incentive Payment System that occurred as part of the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018. Includes an appendix comparing the original framework for the system with changes for 2018/2019.
Author(s): Abiodun Salako, A. Clinton MacKinney, Fred Ullrich, Keith Mueller
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organization: RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis
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Are Marketplace Premiums Higher in Rural than in Urban Areas?
Examines monthly health insurance premium differences among 499 rural and urban premium rating regions for the Affordable Care Act (ACA) compliant nongroup marketplaces in the U.S. Includes state-by-state data for average monthly premium costs in rural and urban areas during 2016 and 2017.
Additional links: Full Report
Author(s): Erik Wengle, Linda J Blumberg, John Holahan
Date: 11/2018
Type: Document
Sponsoring organizations: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Urban Institute
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