rural hospitals

Rural hospitals gird for unwinding of pandemic Medicaid coverage

BY: - February 21, 2023

Donald Lloyd, CEO and president of St. Claire HealthCare in Morehead, Kentucky, has spent more than a year dealing with higher costs for food and medical supplies for his regional hospital. Now he’s trying to prepare for another financial hit — the loss of Medicaid reimbursements for treating people in rural Appalachia. “We are all […]

Biden vaccine rules worry rural hospitals about potential strain

BY: - October 27, 2021

Story from Stateline, an initiative of The Pew Charitable Trusts Throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, short-staffed rural hospitals have been stretched to their limits. Some have cut back, delayed or eliminated services such as elective surgeries, labor and delivery, and other inpatient care. Nurses and other health care employees have worked double shifts, and many rural […]

Rural hospitals are under siege from COVID-19 – here’s what doctors are facing, in their own words

BY: and - December 1, 2020

It’s difficult to put into words how hard COVID-19 is hitting rural America’s hospitals. North Dakota has so many cases, it’s allowing asymptomatic COVID-19-positive nurses to continue caring for patients to keep the hospitals staffed. Iowa and South Dakota have teetered on the edge of running out of hospital capacity. Yet in many communities, the […]

“This is not a drill.” Health officials say they might have to start canceling procedures

BY: - November 20, 2020

Coronavirus cases in Ohio continue to snowball and now health officials say the strain is so great that any day now they might have to start canceling medical procedures. They made that stark warning on a day when the state’s GOP lawmakers seemed to be living in another world, with House Republicans voting down a […]

Much of the federal coronavirus money distributed so far goes to hospitals that need it least, critics say

BY: - May 19, 2020

The rich keep getting richer — even among hospitals dealing with a historic pandemic.

COVID-19 may hit rural residents hard, and that spells trouble because of lack of rural health care

BY: - April 16, 2020

The burden of COVID-19 in rural areas has been under the radar, as the toll of the disease so far has been heaviest in dense urban areas. But up to 30% of the U.S. population lives in rural America, which already has experienced more than 128 hospital closures since 2010, including 19 last year. COVID-19 […]