CMS Releases Rural Health Strategy
We are excited to have CMS announce the agency’s first Rural Health Strategy during our Annual Conference this week in New Orleans. We were joined by CMS Administrator Seema Verma at our Policy Institute in February, where she announced that we would soon see a rural health policy plan from the agency. CMS is the home of so many programs critical to rural health, and today’s announcement formalizes a new approach to creating policy that we hope will help ensure the healthy future of rural America. NRHA fully supports Administrator Verma’s efforts, as well as all the work of so many others at CMS, in creating this initiative. As we learn from individuals from CMS here at our Annual Conference, we are excited to hear even more about what is next.
We are optimistic that CMS efforts to ensure that the needs of rural Americans are met will create a regulatory policy environment that can support the needs of rural communities. As the hospital closure crisis escalates, as opioids tear through towns, as workforce shortages rise, and as resources grow scarce, we need this initiative more than ever. We hope that this rural prospective will provide us more opportunities to directly engage with the experts at CMS.
We greatly appreciate the work that Administrator Verma has done on the agency’s first Rural Health Strategy, and we look forward to meeting with those at CMS involved soon to discuss how we can best work together to support rural providers and beneficiaries.
You can view the Fact Sheet released by CMS here.