On January 25, 2021, Reps. Antonio Delgado (D-NY) and Elise Stefanik (R-NY) introduced the Protecting Rural Access to Care Act (H.R. 489), a bill intended to protect the benefits of rural hospitals already struggling with the COVID-19 pandemic. “The shuttering of one hospital, let alone three, in a rural area where residents travel long distances for health care and hospitals experience difficulty in retaining and attracting medical professionals, is unconscionable,” Delgado said. “The COVID-19 pandemic has underscored what folks upstate already knew — we need more access to health care facilities, not less.” A key measure in the bill would reverse a change made in 2015 to how the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) defines secondary roads, which can determine whether hospitals qualify for the Critical Access Hospital program. This new change to the definition would ensure many existing rural hospitals do not lose the benefits of being a Critical Access Hospital once they begin recertification.

On January 28, 2021, President Biden signed two executive orders related to health care. The White House stated that these new executive orders, “Will re-open enrollment to the Health Insurance Marketplace, take additional steps to strengthen Medicaid and the Affordable Care Act, and protect women’s health.” Subsequently, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) announced a Special Enrollment Period (SEP) for individuals and families for Marketplace coverage in response to the COVID-19 Public Health Emergency. In a recent alert about the SEP, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) relayed that the Marketplaces would be open from February 15, 2021 through May 15, 2021. President Biden’s executive order to protect women’s health included a Presidential Memorandum to protect and expand access to comprehensive reproductive health care, among other, more controversial policies.

The U.S. Preventive Services Task Force (USPSTF) has published an editorial, “The USPSTF Values Statement and Actions to Address Systemic Racism Through Clinical Preventive Services,” in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA). Authored by members of the Task Force, this editorial affirms that, while clinical preventive services improve health and well-being, systemic racism in the healthcare system prevents many Black, Indigenous, and Hispanic/Latino people from fully benefitting from these services. The editorial also advances a roadmap designed to address systemic racism and help eliminate health inequities.

With Federally Qualified Health Centers (FQHCs) serving as a point of care for more than 28 million patients, many of whom are uninsured, living in poverty and located in rural areas, these social determinants of health create chronic conditions, including a disproportionate burden of oral disease. FQHCs have been at the forefront of providing comprehensive, person-centered health care that has been facilitated by better access to technology infrastructure and coordinated primary care delivery. As such, a series of analyses were performed by the DentaQuest Partnership using three data sources to explore health outcomes and service provision in an FQHC population compared to non-FQHC populations. Click here to read more.

Hospitals in Medicaid expansion states saved an average of $6.4 million on uncompensated care, according to a study published in Health Affairs. Uncompensated care made up six percent of total expenses for hospitals in non-expansion states in 2017, double the amount for those located in states that had expanded the program. “As COVID-19 has brought hospitals to a time of great need, findings from this study provide important information on what hospitals in states that have yet to expand Medicaid could gain through expansion and what is at risk should any reversal of Medicaid expansions occur”. Read more.