Celebrate National Rural Health Day through advocacy!
Media outlets across the country, from USA Today to the US News and World Report, are noting the rural hospital closure crisis. Today, on National Rural Health Day, NRHA encourages all rural health advocates to raise their voices together to ask Congress to support rural health care providers and the patients they serve. Since 2010, 43 rural hospitals have closed. As many as 283 more hospitals are on the verge of closure. Call or email Congress NOW and tell them to stop the cuts to rural hospitals.
- Rural hospitals provide quality, affordable care to 62 million rural Americans. Small, rural hospitals, known as Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), represent over 26% of all community hospitals, yet Medicare expenditures to CAHs are less than 5% of the Medicare hospital budget.
- CAHs provide cost-effective primary care. In fact, the government spends 2.5% per year on rural Medicare beneficiaries than on urban beneficiaries. This focus on primary care, as opposed to specialty care, saves Medicare $2.2 billion a year.
- Rural health care providers account for 20% of local economic output and are critical to attracting new business, workers, and visitors.
- Congress must take affirmative steps to stop rural hospital cuts and stop the closures!