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Rural Hospitals – News

News stories from the past 60 days.

Sep 9, 2025 - Profiles the Rough Rider Network, a collaborative effort of 22 independent rural healthcare facilities known as a Clinical Integration Network (CIN). Located in North Dakota, these facilities are working together to save money and improve care across all facilities.
Source: KFF Health News
Aug 5, 2025 - Notice of a final rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) updating the FY 2026 prospective payment rates, outlier threshold, and wage index for Medicare inpatient hospital services provided by inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPF), including psychiatric hospitals and excluded psychiatric units of an acute care hospital or Critical Access Hospital. Includes a revision to the payment adjustment factors for teaching status and for IPFs in rural areas. These changes will be effective for IPF discharges occurring during the fiscal year beginning October 1, 2025, through September 30, 2026. This final rule also includes changes to measures used in the Inpatient Psychiatric Facilities Quality Reporting (IPFQR) Program and changes to update and codify the Extraordinary Circumstances Exception policy. These changes are effective October 1, 2025.
Source: Federal Register
Aug 5, 2025 - Notice of a final rule from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) seeking comments on updates to the prospective payment system for inpatient rehabilitation facilities (IRFs) for fiscal year 2026. Among other things, this rule proposes classification and weighting factors for the IRF prospective payment system's case-mix groups, continues the second year of the 3-year phase-out of the rural adjustments, and includes proposals for the IRF Quality Reporting Program. This final rule is effective October 1, 2025.
Source: Federal Register
Aug 4, 2025 - Notice of final rule from the Centers revising the hospital inpatient prospective payment system (IPPS) for operating and capital-related costs of acute care hospitals for fiscal year 2026. This rule also makes changes related to Medicare graduate medical education (GME) for teaching hospitals; updates payment policies and the annual payment rates for the Medicare prospective payment system (PPS) for inpatient hospital services provided by long-term care hospitals; updates and make changes to requirements for certain quality programs; and finalizes certain updates to the ONC Health Information Technology (IT) Certification Program among other things. These final rules are effective October 1, 2025.
Source: Federal Register
Jul 18, 2025 - The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is seeking comments on a proposed information collection project titled "National Healthcare Safety Network (NHSN)." This information collection is designed to provides facilities, states, regions, and the nation with data necessary to identify problem areas, measure the progress of prevention efforts, and ultimately eliminate healthcare-associated infections (HAIs) nationwide. Comments are due by September 16, 2025.
Source: Federal Register

Last Updated: 9/9/2025