Rural and Urban Hospitals in the United States

The table below shows the number of rural and urban hospitals in the United States as of January 1, 2016. The source of the data is the 2016 Provider of Services file produced by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.  Hospitals are classified as rural by using the definition provided by the Federal Office… Read more »

Opioid Poisoning Related Hospital Use in North Carolina

Nationally, the opioid epidemic is expanding at a rapid pace. Deaths from opioid overdose quadrupled from 1999 to 2016.  North Carolina is experiencing a faster increase in drug overdose deaths than the nation as a whole. However, opioid use does not always manifest in death. One report estimates that there are four inpatient visits and… Read more »

Rural Health Snapshot (2017)

Disparities in health status and access to health care exist between people living in rural areas and those in urban areas.   The displays selected indicators of access to health care, health behavior/risk factors, and mortality rates, comparing rural to urban residents. Read more

U.S. Hospital List (2016)

The North Carolina Rural Health Research Program produces a list of rural and urban U.S. hospitals each year.  This list includes 4,768 acute and 1,373 specialty hospitals that were reported open on January 1, 2016.  

The Financial Importance of the Sole Community Hospital Payment Designation

In 1983, Congress created the Sole Community Hospital (SCH) program to support small rural hospitals for which “by reason of factors such as isolated location, weather conditions, travel conditions, or absence of other hospitals, is the sole source of inpatient hospital services reasonably available in a geographic area to Medicare beneficiaries.” As such, Medicare SCH… Read more »

The Impact of the Low Volume Hospital (LVH) Program on the Viability of Small, Rural Hospitals

Thanks to a temporary, but substantial expansion of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Low Volume Hospital (LVH) Program, around 500 rural hospitals benefit from LVH payment adjustment. When it was originally implemented in 2005 only five rural hospitals qualified. Under the program, CMS provides an additional payment to qualifying hospitals for the higher costs associated with… Read more »

Trends in Risk of Financial Distress among Rural Hospitals

From January 2005 to July 2016, 118 rural hospitals have closed permanently, not including seven others that closed and subsequently reopened. The number of closures has increased each year since 2010, and in the first half of 2016, the closure rate surpassed two closures per month. Hospital closures impact millions of rural residents in communities… Read more »

Does ACA Insurance Coverage Expansion Improve the Financial Performance of Rural Hospitals?

The implementation of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (ACA) is changing hospital reimbursement in important ways.  The most significant changes stem from increasing access to health insurance coverage for previously uninsured or under-insured populations. Since rural residents are more likely than urban residents to be uninsured, increased access to health insurance should, in… Read more »

Characteristics of Medicaid Beneficiaries Who Use Rural Health Clinics

For almost four decades, Rural Health Clinics (RHCs) (currently numbering about 4,100) have served patients from underserved rural areas. Although Medicaid is an important payer for RHCs, little is known about Medicaid patients and the services provided to them partly because of the complexity of identifying claims generated from RHCs in Medicaid claims data sources…. Read more »

Identifying Rural Health Clinics in Medicaid Data

In 1977, Public Law 95-210 created the Rural Health Clinic (RHC) Medicare and Medicaid reimbursement designation for qualified primary care practices. RHCs must be located in non-urban areas with documented health care shortages. There are currently more than 4,100 RHCs across the U.S. Some RHCs operate as independent medical practices, while others are part of… Read more »