Rural issues
AHA staff today participated in a White House Convening on Rural Telehealth, which highlighted the essential role of telehealth in reaching high-need rural families and communities. Officials from the Obama administration, state and local government, academia and the practitioner community…
The Health Resources and Services Administration is accepting applications through April 8 for fiscal year 2016 grants to support telehealth services for school-based health centers in rural, frontier and underserved communities. Hospitals may sponsor the health centers and be part of the…
Rural hospitals are their community’s anchor. By providing 24/7 care, essential public services and access to primary care for the 57 million people that live in rural America, these hospitals are vitally important. That’s why the AHA swiftly reacted to guidance issued by CMS late last year which…
On Feb. 12, as urged by the AHA, CMS released a recertification guidance and checklist to state survey agency directors indicating that states may immediately use alternative ways to document that a critical access hospital is a necessary provider.
As urged by AHA, states may immediately use alternative ways to document that a critical access hospital is a “necessary provider,” the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services announced today in guidance to state survey agencies. CMS last year issued interpretive guidance that allowed only a…
Medicare and other federal programs must account for the special circumstances of rural communities.