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Rural Health Information Hub

Rural Health
Resources by Topic: Healthcare business and finance

Rural Hospital Stabilization Committee Pilot Program Report
Reports on the initial results of using a "hub and spoke" model in Georgia to help address rural hospital financial pressures and emergency department overuse. Highlights the progress made by the initial four hub hospitals and the spokes, which included school-based healthcare and Federally Qualified Health Centers. Additional link provides performance metrics for the pilot.
Additional links: Profile for Rural Hospital Stabilization Committee (Data from SFY 2016 Phase 1 Pilot Program)
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Georgia State Office of Rural Health
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Tobacco Use and Health Insurance Literacy Among Vulnerable Populations: Implications for Health Reform
Results of a study examining health insurance literacy among tobacco users, with data collected from 631 lower-income, predominantly minority residents of rural Virginia. Features statistics on insurance choice and cost, age, race, education, and tobacco use.
Author(s): Robert T. Braun, Yaniv Hanoch, Andrew J. Barnes
Citation: BMC Health Services Research, 17, 729
Date: 11/2017
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Emerging Strategies to Ensure Access to Health Care Services: Emergency Medical Center
Provides an overview of the emergency medical center (EMC) model, which would allow struggling hospitals to convert to EMC status and provide emergency and outpatient services, without having to provide inpatient acute care services. Also outlines rural-specific federal policy proposals that seek to create similar hospital designations, with the goal of improving access to and the delivery of care in underserved communities.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association
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Emerging Strategies to Ensure Access to Health Care Services: Frontier Health System
Discusses the challenges of providing care in frontier communities and offers solutions for improving access to and delivery of care. Proposes the creation of a frontier-specific accountable care organization (ACO), the Frontier Health System (FHS), that provides traditional ACO services along with transportation, swing beds, home-based care, expanded visiting nurse services, and more.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association
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Catalyzing Medicaid-Public Health Collaboration to Reduce Childhood Obesity
Explains cross-sector interventions tested by 5 states - Arizona, Maryland, Oklahoma, Oregon, and Texas - participating in the Center for Health Care Strategies' Innovations in Childhood Obesity Initiative. Each state profile highlights how Medicaid and public health agencies are using innovative approaches to address childhood obesity in their high-risk communities. The Texas initiative focuses on childhood obesity in the rural, low-income population along the U.S./Mexico border.
Author(s): Alexandra Maul, Stephen A. Somers
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Center for Health Care Strategies
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Meadville Medical Center: Care Coordination for Adults and Children
Describes the Meadville Medical Center Community Care Network (CCN), an interdisciplinary team of clinicians who focus on using care coordination to help patients manage chronic conditions and achieve their health and wellness goals. CCN's goal is to engage patients and encourage them to take ownership of their health, thereby reducing hospital readmissions, conserving resources, and improving the health of the population.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association Rural Health Services
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Ensuring Access with a Hospital's Conversion to a Freestanding Emergency Department
Outlines Ellijay, Georgia-based North Georgia Medical Center's transition from a traditional community hospital to a freestanding emergency department (ED). Shares administrative, legal, and logistical challenges that, once overcome, resulted in Piedmont Mountainside Hospital Emergency Services - a successful, community-focused, freestanding ED.
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: American Hospital Association Rural Health Services
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Comparing the Affordable Care Act's Financial Impact on Safety-Net Hospitals in States That Expanded Medicaid and Those That Did Not
Examines how Medicaid expansion affected the financial health of safety-net hospitals, and compares hospitals in expansion states with hospitals in non-expansion states. Addresses changes in operating margins, Medicaid inpatient days, Medicaid revenues and costs, and uncompensated care costs. Findings are based on data from Medicare's fiscal year 2012-2015 hospital cost reports.
Author(s): Allen Dobson, Joan E. DaVanzo, Randy Haught, Phap-Hoa Luu
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Commonwealth Fund
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Examining Oral Health Care Utilization and Expenditures for Low-Income Adults
Explores oral health utilization and Medicaid expenditures across the nation. Presents a state-by-state map of Medicaid coverage for adult dental services. Breaks down data by age, race, and rural-urban areas, among other factors.
Author(s): Stacey Chazin, June Glover
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organization: Center for Health Care Strategies
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Stepping into the Breach: How States and Insurers Worked Together to Prevent Bare Counties for 2018
Examines 6 states - Iowa, Nevada, Ohio, Oklahoma, Tennessee, and Washington - that faced the prospect of having counties with no participating insurers ahead of the 2018 plan year open enrollment period. Shares insights from interviews with insurers and state regulators, focusing on how administrative and/or legislative actions and media coverage affected insurers' decisions to remain in the Marketplace. Includes a discussion on the challenges associated with risk assessment and rate setting in low-population, rural counties.
Author(s): Kevin Lucia, Jack Hoadley, Sabrina Corlette, Dania Palanker, Olivia Hoppe
Date: 11/2017
Sponsoring organizations: Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, Urban Institute
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