In this report, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) provide an extensive analysis of Medicaid coverage of NEMT, including the types of medical services accessed, monthly trends in the use of NEMT versus telehealth services, and a comparison of the volume of NEMT services used by states and geographic area. For example, in 2021, about 7 percent of beneficiaries living in frontier or remote areas used NEMT compared to less than 4 percent of all Medicaid beneficiaries. 

  Among the findings from the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis:

• Non-metropolitan respondents more frequently reported lack of transportation, whereas metropolitan respondents were more likely to report not getting appointments scheduled soon enough (both examples of accommodation barriers).
• Among the non-metropolitan respondents, lack of transportation was most common among Hispanic, non-Hispanic Black, and American Indian/Alaska Native respondents compared to non-Hispanic White counterparts.
• Among non-metropolitan respondents, a higher percentage of American Indian/Alaska Native respondents reported not being at all satisfied with their care.

As more pandemic assistance programs were phased out in 2022, small businesses in our region still needed funding. And many were coping with supply chain issues, staffing challenges, and rising prices. This is what small businesses in our region reported to the Fed’s Small Business Credit Survey in the fall of 2022.

Using data from the 2023 Report on Employer Firms: Findings from the 2022 Small Business Credit Survey, four briefs offer a snapshot of small business conditions in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, the Philadelphia metro, and the Third District states overall (Delaware, New Jersey, and Pennsylvania).

Here is what small businesses in our region said about their conditions in 2022:

• Many firms saw increases in revenue compared with 2021. But a majority reported financial conditions were still poor or fair and many continued to need funding.
• The biggest operational challenges were supply chain issues, hiring or retaining qualified staff, and reaching customers or growing sales.
• Their biggest financial challenges? Rising costs of goods, services, or wages, paying operating expenses, uneven cash flow, and weak sales.

Read the briefs.

  The Merit-based Incentive Payment System (MIPS) is a pay-for-performance system for clinicians under the Medicare Quality Payment Program designed to reward clinicians for providing higher quality of care and lower costs. This study from the RUPRI Center for Rural Health Policy Analysis compared clinicians’ MIPS performance in 2018 based on their practice location, size, and minority population proportion.

 In this cross-sectional study of more than 11 million births in urban counties and 519, 953 births in rural counties, researchers identify hospital factors associated with severe maternal morbidity.

 From May-June 2018, researchers collected 312 survey responses from patients at a rural emergency department and identified three key determinants of social insecurity: 1) access to transportation, 2) food insecurity, and 3) exposure to violence.  Findings show significant differences among the three major racial/ethnicity groups represented – Native Americans (34.3 percent), Blacks (33.7 percent), and Whites (27.6 percent).

Last week, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention released data showing a significant increase – 276 percent in 21 jurisdictions from 2019 to 2022 – in overdose deaths involving Xylazine, a nonopioid sedative that’s been detected in illicitly manufactured fentanyl drug products.  Because of inconsistent testing, the numbers are likely underestimated; in 2022, the Drug Enforcement Administration reported 23 percent of seized fentanyl powder and 7 percent of seized fentanyl pills contained xylazine.

 Previous studies on social infrastructure in the built environment – specifically, the physical places that facilitate social interaction and social tie formation – relied heavily on urban settings or samples with limited diversity.  For this study, researchers examine whether social infrastructure is associated with well-being for older adults in rural areas and whether this relationship varies across race and ethnicity.