The Hospital and Healthsystem Association of Pennsylvania (HAP) released a new economic impact report based on an analysis of 2020 data.

This analysis examines how, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, the hospital community continued its vital economic role regionally and across the state. It assesses the effects of hospital spending and employment, documenting that hospitals remain among the largest employers across the commonwealth. It also recognizes the role hospitals play in attracting federal research dollars and the broader benefits hospitals provide by training tomorrow’s clinicians, providing charity and unreimbursed care.

Findings from this paper should be used to inform policy discussions surrounding topics that affect long-term hospital sustainability. This includes, but is not limited to, hospital funding, promoting health equity, prior authorization reform, telemedicine service reimbursement, credentialing process streamlining, adequate Quality Care Assessment support, and bolstering Pennsylvania’s health care workforce.

The overview, full report, and interactive dashboard can be accessed here.

The CareQuest Institute for Oral Health published “Addressing Oral Health of Low-Income Populations: A Call to Action” in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) Network Open. The article underscores the importance of strengthening Medicaid benefits to include dental coverage. The commentary was in response to the article and study that suggested that the combination of Medicaid expansion and addition of Medicaid dental benefits not only improved coverage and access to dental care among low-income adults but also produced significant improvements in clinical indicators of oral health.

Click here to read the article.

The Health Resources and Services Administration- (HRSA)- sponsored Health Workforce Research Centers (HWRC) released their annual report. The report includes information on a variety of resources for physical, behavioriral, and oral health. See the image below from the report, depicting specific requirements in state laws and regulation that impact the ability of dental hygienists to apply silver diamine fluoride (SDF).

Click here to download the report.

Until last year, the federal program that repays education loans for nurses required that they work only at non-profit facilities.  The pandemic-related CARES Act eliminated that restriction in March 2020, allowing Nurse Corps members to serve at for-profit critical shortage facilities (CSFs).  The Government Accountability Office (GAO) examined the change and determined that it’s too early to tell its effects.  Officials at non-profit CSFs such as Critical Access Hospitals expressed concern that for-profit facilities can offer higher wages, resulting in fewer nurses willing to work at non-profit CSFs in rural and other underserved areas.

The report can be accessed here:  GAO Examines Nurse Corps Loan Repayment Program.

Two companion studies by the WWAMI Rural Health Health Research Center, led by Eric Larson, PhD, find that rural residents travel farther for health care and often have more problems accessing care, including medical and surgical specialists, than their urban counterparts.

The first policy brief examined national utilization, generalist vs. specialty care visits, and travel time for various types of visits at national and Census Division levels for rural and urban Medicare beneficiaries in 2014. Generalist providers (generalist physicians, nurse practitioners and physician assistants) performed over 51.7% of all visits for rural beneficiaries (vs. 38.1% among urban beneficiaries). Rural beneficiaries also had slightly more visits per capita in 2014 than urban beneficiaries overall and within the same Census Division.

The second policy brief reports findings of a similar study conducted by the WWAMI RHRC using 1999 Medicare data from five states (AK, ID, NC, SC, WA). Findings showed that the number of visits by rural Medicare beneficiaries dropped from 9.6 visits per year in 1999 to 8.9 in 2014. The proportion of visits provided by generalist physicians to rural beneficiaries in the five states increased from 29.2% to 41.7% during the same period.

Beneficiaries from isolated small rural areas, especially Hispanic and Native American beneficiaries, experienced much longer travel times than other rural (and urban) beneficiaries. Over 25% of visits by beneficiaries from isolated small rural areas for serious conditions such as ischemic heart disease and cancer required one-way travel of more than 50 miles, taking more than one hour.

The results of both studies underscore the ongoing importance of generalist providers in rural health care and the continuing challenges of access to specialty care posed by the long distances and travel times faced by many rural residents.  Read more

The Rural and Minority Health Research Center released a new brief that examines the trend of hospital closures between 2005 and 2018 across definitions of rurality. Social, economic, and health structure trends at the county level across the contiguous United States were the study’s focus. Rural counties with hospital closures that occurred between 2005 and 2018 experienced greater negative economic, health, and social outcomes than did micropolitan counties.

Click here to access the brief.