The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) updated, expanded, and renamed its former guide Preventing Suicide: A Technical Package of Policy, Programs, and Practices.  The resource now includes strategies with the best available evidence to prevent risk for suicide to lessen the immediate and long-term harms of suicidal behavior for individuals, families, and communities.  Recent data from the CDC showed that suicide rates were consistently higher in rural areas than in metropolitan areas, with the highest rates among non-Hispanic American Indian/Alaska Natives in rural counties.

This week, CMS issued the calendar year 2023 Home Health Prospective Payment System (HH PPS) Rate Update final rule, which updates Medicare payment policies and rates for home health agencies (HHAs). This rule includes routine updates to the Medicare Home Health PPS and the home infusion therapy services’ payment rates for CY 2023. CMS estimates that Medicare payments to HHAs in CY 2023 will increase in the aggregate by 0.7%, and by 0.6% for rural HHAs. The final rule also indicates that CMS will issue further guidance in January 2023 on the voluntary and required reporting of telehealth data on claims.

Last week, CMS issued a final rule implementing changes made by the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2021 to make it easier for people to enroll in Medicare and to eliminate delays in coverage. Among these changes, individuals will now have Medicare coverage the month immediately after their enrollment.  In addition, the rule expands access through Medicare special enrollment periods and allows certain eligible beneficiaries to receive Medicare Part B coverage without a late enrollment penalty. Nearly one-fifth of Medicare beneficiaries live in rural areas, according to the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission’s July 2022 Data Book.

The Rural Health Research Gateway identifies the key findings on specific topics.  Aging in Place finds a higher share of the population aged 65 and older in rural areas and examines their preferences for long-term care.  Maternal Health Disparities: An Intersection of Race and Rurality shows that, from 2012 to 2018, non-Hispanic Black mothers had the highest rate of preterm birth.  Rural Mental Health finds that nearly a third of rural adults with serious mental illness received no mental health treatment in 2018.  Travel Burden to Receive Health Care shows that, in 2017, the average rural resident traveled 120 percent more miles per one-way trip to receive medical or dental care than the average urban resident.

  This chartbook from the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis covers findings on overall coverage (insured and uninsured rates), employer-sponsored insurance, marketplace coverage, and Medicare and Medicaid coverage. The demographic and economic characteristics of rural persons and their coverage rates are described, as well as how coverage impacts health status, access to care, and costs.

Last week, FORHP and the Rural Health Information Hub hosted a webinar for interested organizations to learn more about the Public Health AmeriCorps, a new national service program in partnership with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention that will recruit and train nearly 3,000 AmeriCorps Members to address COVID-19 recovery, health equity, and local public health concerns. The webinar featured an overview of the program by the AmeriCorps Public Health Director and speakers from Idaho State University’s Gem State Public Health AmeriCorps program and the American Heart Association’s HeartCorps program who discussed how they leveraged AmeriCorps funding, and the impact of AmeriCorps volunteers to support program goals. The webinar recording, slides, and transcript are now available on the Rural Health Information website.

In spring 2021, researchers interviewed 30 rural, older (>65) patients enrolled in the Veterans Health Administration geriatric specialty telemedicine service to assess the program’s quality and value.  Along with their caregivers, participants reported improved patient health; increased patient and caregiver understanding of symptom management; and greater feelings of empowerment, hopefulness, and support.

The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention show that, in 2020, deaths due to COVID-19 became the third leading cause of death in the United States.  The death rate that year was highest in most urban areas at 97.7 deaths per 100,000 people.  But the second-highest rate of death was in the most rural areas at 90.6 deaths per 100,000 people.  Among males under age 65, those in the most urban areas had the highest COVID-19 death rates; among females, rates were highest in the most rural areas.

CMS also released the Physician Fee Schedule final rule for the calendar year 2023 this week, addressing new policies for Accountable Care Organizations (ACOs) in the Medicare Shared Savings Program that support providers treating rural and underserved populations. The final includes updates to policies on evaluation/management services, telehealth services, behavioral health services, and Opioid Treatment Programs. Additionally, CMS incorporated new chronic pain management and behavioral health integration services to the Rural Health Clinic and Federally Qualified Health Center specific general care management HCPCS code, G0511.

This week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the final payment policies for the Medicare Hospital Outpatient Prospective Payment System for the calendar year 2023. This rule also includes payment, enrollment, and conditions of participation policies for the new provider type, Rural Emergency Hospitals. Finally, CMS is codifying in regulation the location and distance requirements that Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) must meet for certification, including a new definition for “primary road’ used for determining the driving distance of a CAH and its proximity to other providers.  FORHP is funding technical assnam10.safelinks.protection.outlook.comistance to support rural hospitals exploring the Rural Emergency Hospital option.