NRHA calls for Congress to protect important rural programs
Millions of rural Americans, and rural Medicare beneficiaries, depend on their local hospitals to access primary, acute, and emergency care. If the Medicare Dependent Hospital and Low-Volume Hospital programs expire, hundreds of rural communities will be exposed to a reduction of services in their local facility, job loss, or worse —closure of their local hospital. Because they serve this uniquely vulnerable population, these rural hospitals operate on razor thin margins. Already 48 hospitals have closed since 2013 and right now 283 teeter on the brink of closure. Without these vital Medicare rural health programs, rural hospitals are in even greater danger. Expiration of other programs such as the rural work floor in the geographic practice cost index and rural ambulance payments will further hurt rural Americans' access to health care. NRHA calls on Congress to act to avoid these dire outcomes by permanently extending the Medicare Dependent Hospital designation, Low-Volume Hospital adjustment, the current rural and “super-rural” ambulance payments, and the rural work floor in the Geographic Practice Cost Index (GPCI) now. If these programs are allowed to expire, rural Medicare beneficiaries' access to primary, emergency and hospital care is in serious jeopardy. Call your members of Congress today and tell them to protect these critical rural health programs.