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Saturday, August 10th, 2024

More Rural Hospitals Are on the Verge of Closing, Report Finds

Author:     Joyce Frieden
Source:     MedPage Today
Publication Date:     August 9, 2024
 Link: More Rural Hospitals Are on the Verge of Closing, Report Finds
Stephan:  

We are the only developed nation in the world that does not have universal birthright single payer healthcare; what we have is an illness profit system. It is the worst healthcare in the developed world. And, by orders of magnitude, the most expensive. It is also getting worse ever year. It has nothing to do with the wellbeing of the American people. It is all about profit, and particularly in rural areas it is essentially vanishing, particularly in states controlled by the MAGAts that used to be the Republican Party. OB/GYNs are leaving those states, pediatricians are growing fewer and fewer, and we are thousands of physicians shy of what the country needs. Some areas are now medical deserts, and with no hospital at all.

A hospital that is closing. Credit: MedPage Today

More rural hospitals are in danger of closing, in large part because of insufficient reimbursement from private health plans, a report found.

“The primary reason hundreds of rural hospitals are at risk of closing is that private insurance plans are paying them less than what it costs to deliver services to patients,” the report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform (CHQPR) noted. “Although the at-risk hospitals are losing money on uninsured patients and Medicaid patients, losses on private insurance patients are the biggest cause of overall losses.”

The report documents 703 rural hospitals nationwide at risk of closing, compromising almost a third of rural hospitals. This is on top of the 105 hospitals that have closed since 2015. In addition, more than two dozen hospitals shut down their inpatient services in order to become Rural Emergency Hospitals (REHs), which offer emergency services only, the report explained.

People may think that changing from being a full-service hospital to becoming an REH means eliminating only inpatient beds, but that’s not true, said Harold […]

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