Have you watched the BPHC Workforce recent webinar on designing and implementing a Workforce Well-being Strategy? BPHC invites you to join their virtual office hours where they will clarify your questions and go over common challenges health center leadership face when developing such a strategy. Examples may include securing executive buy-in, balancing competing priorities, and integrating initiatives into organizational culture. BPHCs TA facilitators will also point out ways in which you can tackle these issues and address topics requested by health center staff. Don’t forget to download their Workforce Well-being Strategy Template to support your health center in building an effective strategy. TA Modality Office Hours are Sept. 10, 2024, from 2:00-3:00 pm. For more information about BPHCs full range of Technical Assistance opportunities, access to publications and resources, and details on past events, please visit their website.

CDC’s Advisory Committee on Immunization Practices updated its flu vaccine recommendations for the 2024-2025 flu season. Primary changes and updates include the composition of the vaccines and updated recommendations for vaccination of adult solid organ transplant recipients. See the full announcement in CDC’s Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report.

– Comment by October 4. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is revisiting possible changes to Medicare Administrative Contractor (MAC) jurisdictions and contract duration. In this RFI, CMS seeks feedback from industry leaders about potentially combining 4 MAC jurisdictions into 2 and extending MAC contracts to 10 years.  A CMS MAC is a primary health care insurer that has been awarded a geographic jurisdiction to process fee-for-service claims, e.g., Medicare Part A, Part B, and durable medical equipment claims. The MAC serves as the primary contact between Medicare and health care providers, and is a multi-state, regional contractor responsible for administering both Part A and Part B claims. To see if your MAC jurisdiction may be affected by CMS’ proposed updates, please review the RIF on SAM.gov.

To improve implementation of parity in Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP), the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) seeks comments on a new set of templates and instructional guides for state agencies to document how mental health and substance use disorder benefits provided through a state’s Medicaid managed care program, Medicaid alternative benefit plans, and/or Children’s Health Insurance Program (CHIP) comply with Medicaid and CHIP Mental Health Parity and Addiction Equity Act Final Rule requirements. These new tools are intended to standardize, streamline, and strengthen the process for states to demonstrate, and for CMS to determine, compliance with, mental health/substance use disorder parity requirements in coverage and delivery of state Medicaid and CHIP benefits.  Medicaid and CHIP are important sources of insurance in rural areas, and they play a key role in financing care for people with behavioral health needs.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services Innovation Center (CMMI) published a list of urban and rural acute care hospitals located in one of the Core Based Statistical Areas selected for mandatory participation in TEAM, a new episode-based, alternative payment model, in which selected acute care hospitals will coordinate care for people with Traditional Medicare undergoing one of the surgical procedures included in the model and assume responsibility for the cost and quality of care from surgery through the first 30 days after the Medicare beneficiary leaves the hospital. CMS requests that a representative from each hospital on the list complete the online TEAM Primary Point of Contact Identification Form to identify points of contact for TEAM-related communications.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) updated its guidance regarding the REH enrollment and conversion process for eligible facilities as well as the Frequently Asked Questions (FAQs). Congress established REHs as a new type of Medicare provider that cannot have acute care inpatient beds, must provide emergency and observation care, and may provide other outpatient services. In 2022, CMS published a final rule codifying the Conditions of Participation (CoPs) that REHs must meet in order to participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs along with payment policies, quality measures and enrollment policies. This revised guidance addresses questions that have been raised since that time. For example, it includes a question clarifying that meeting the FORHP definition of rural will not meet the statutory requirements for converting to an REH. Final interpretive guidance for REHs is pending and will be provided in a future release.

This brief from the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis presents financial performance trends of hospitals who participated in Medicare’s Shared Savings Program (SSP) from 2011 to 2018. Trends in six financial outcomes are compared between SSP and non-SSP hospitals over time and between rural and urban hospitals.

The Economic Research Service (ERS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture reports that 13.5 percent (18 million) of U.S. households were food-insecure, meaning they were uncertain of having, or unable to acquire, enough food to meet the needs of all their members because they had insufficient money or other resources for food.  Last week, the ERS updated State Fact Sheets for rural economic factors including population, income, poverty, food security, education, employment, and more.

A recent publication examines differences across rural and urban hospitals in the rates of sepsis cases as well as attributes such as length of stay, cost of care, and death rates. The report, from the Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality (AHRQ), looked at the over 2 million admissions each year with sepsis as a primary diagnosis and found distinctions between rural and urban facilities in the proportion of admissions for this reason as well as additional differences based on facility ownership status. Of note, rural hospitals admitted proportionately fewer sepsis cases, had lower costs and length of stay, and experienced a rise in death rates, from 7.5 to 10.3 percent, over the three years studied.

In the latest Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reports that rates were lowest in the counties with the highest health insurance coverage, broadband Internet access, and household income.  In 2022, the overall suicide rate was 14.2 per 100,000 population; rates were highest among non-Hispanic American Indian or Alaska Native persons, (27.1), males (23.0), and rural residents (20.0).