Join NRHA’s Virtual March for Rural Hospitals on Wednesday, September 14. Call, Tweet and Facebook your members of Congress, and ask them to save rural hospitals. Tell your member of Congress to co-sponsor H.R. 3225, the Save Rural Hospitals Act, introduced by Reps. Sam Graves (R-MO) and Dave Loebsack (D-IA), and ask your senators to introduce a companion bill.
Seventy-six rural hospitals have closed since 2010, but if the 114th Congress acts now there is still time to save the 673 additional facilities (representing 1/3 of rural hospitals in the U.S.) that are vulnerable to closure.
Rural hospitals provide essential, lifesaving local access to health care close to home for the 62 million Americans living in rural and remote communities.
These hospitals serve vulnerable rural Americans that are older, sicker and poorer then their urban counterparts. Specifically, they are more likely to suffer with a chronic disease that requires monitoring and follow up care. This makes convenient, local access to care necessary to ensuring patient compliance with the services that are necessary to reduce the overall cost of care and improve the patients’ outcomes and quality of life.
Continued Medicare cuts have taken their toll, forcing far too many closures. Thirteen rural hospitals have already closed this year. Medical deserts are appearing across rural America, leaving many of our nation’s most vulnerable populations without timely access to care.
The solution is legislation and it is time for the 114th Congress to take action.
The Save Rural Hospitals Act will stop the impending flood of rural hospital closures and provide needed access to care for rural America. It will stabilize rural hospitals by reversing the multiple across-the-board Medicare cuts that have disproportionately hurt rural hospitals and provide necessary regulatory relief.
Finally, it provides a great path forward for rural health care by creating an innovative delivery model that will ensure emergency access to care and allow hospitals the opportunity to continue to meet the outpatient care needs of their community.
Visit our Save Rural Hospitals Action Kit for more information on this important legislation.