National Rural Health Association

See the following -

283-Mile March Culminates at U.S. Capitol with Call to Save Rural Hospitals

Press Release | AFT | June 12, 2015

As Crisis in Rural Healthcare Grows, Unlikely Allies Come Together to Demand Action...The walk, part of a bipartisan effort to stop rural hospital closures, began in Belhaven, N.C., on June 1, and will cover 283 miles, concluding on the Capitol steps, where supporters will urge Congress to pass the Save Rural Hospitals Act. By year’s end, 283 rural hospitals could face closure, costing rural communities 36,000 jobs, $10.6 billion in GDP, and countless lives, according to the National Rural Health Association. Some 62 million Americans rely on rural healthcare.

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Are CMS' Efforts Too Little and Too Late to Save the Collapsing US Rural Healthcare System?

With 35 percent of rural hospitals losing money and almost two-thirds running a negative operating margin, there’s simply no way rural facilities can invest in health IT without help...It’s clear that CMS understands we can’t leave rural hospitals to fend for themselves. But it also seems clear that a lot of hospitals invested in electronic health records (EHRs) they could ill afford to qualify for Meaningful Use funds—dollars that seldom covered implementation costs for solutions that didn’t yield significant cost savings and required additional technical personnel...“The high capital and operating costs associated with health IT, specifically EHRs, have put some hospitals in a difficult position,” wrote Becker’s Hospital CFO in a prescient January 2014 article. “Do they absorb the financial hit now, even if they know they can't afford it? Most organizations are doing so …”

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Small Town Mayor Leads 283-Mile Walk from North Carolina to D.C. June 1-15 to Protest Potential Closing of 283 Rural Hospitals

Press Release | The Walk to DC | May 23, 2015

In 2015, 283 of America’s rural hospitals face the very real possibly of closing down. To draw attention to a life or death situation for some 62 millionAmericans who rely on rural healthcare, The Walk will begin in Belhaven, North Carolina on June 1 and conclude on the steps of the U.S. Capitol on June 15. The Walk will be led by a most unlikely pair, conservative GOP Mayor Adam O’Neal of Belhaven and Civil Rights legend Bob Zellner, whose purpose is to keep hope alive in the rural town of Belhaven (pop. 1,687) and other small towns across the nation, as well as to encourage Congress to enact legislation to sustain rural hospitals.

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What Hospitals Waste

Marshall Allen | Pro Publica | March 9, 2017

Just outside Portland, Maine, there’s a 15,000-square-foot warehouse that’s packed with reasons the U.S. health care system costs so much: Shelves climb floor to ceiling, stacked with tubs overflowing with unopened packages of syringes, diabetes supplies and shiny surgical instruments that run hundreds of dollars apiece. There are boxes of IV fluids and bags of ostomy supplies and kits with everything you’d need to perform an obstetrics surgery...

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