Experts say about 700 rural hospitals nationwide are at risk for closing – several of them here in the Commonwealth. Harold Miller is President and CEO of the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform.
“A lot of rural hospitals, particularly small, rural hospitals are losing money.”
The main reason, he says, is that care in rural areas is more expensive.
“You have to have the same kinds of staff and equipment that you would have in a larger hospital, but there are fewer patients who are getting that service. So, for example, if you have an emergency department, there needs to be a physician on a 24/7 basis to see patients, but if you don’t have patients continuously as you do in a larger urban hospital, then there aren’t enough payments coming in, if you pay what you’re paying larger hospitals, to be able to cover the cost of that physician.”
And private insurance companies aren’t paying them enough.
“The big health insurance plan can say to the little hospital, ‘Here’s what we’re going to pay you. If the hospital says, ‘We can’t afford to do that,’ then they say, ‘Okay, we don’t have any contract with you, and you won’t get paid at all.’”
Miller says government programs like Medicare and Medicaid provide adequate reimbursement to rural hospitals, but he claims private insurers do not. If we want to protect care for people living in rural communities, he argues, the cost of providing care must be factored into what insurance companies pay.
