Researchers at the WWAMI Rural Health Research Center studied county-level data to calculate provider-to-population ratios of primary care physicians, nurse practitioners, and physician assistants and then compared those ratios between metropolitan, micropolitan, and non-core counties.  Nationally, the provider-to-population ratio of family physicians is slightly higher in rural than urban areas, but the overall per capita supply of primary care providers remains substantially lower in rural areas than urban areas. Read more here.

The Agency for Healthcare Research Quality (AHRQ) examines the costs of potentially preventable hospitalizations, with a comparison of metropolitan and rural hospitals.  The report is part of AHRQs Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project, a collection of data and analyzation tools to enable research on a broad range of health policy issues. Read more here.

Residents of rural communities face longstanding access barriers to mental health (MH) services due to chronic shortages of specialty MH providers, long travel distances to services, increased likelihood of being uninsured or under-insured, limited choice of providers, and high rates of stigma. As a result, rural residents rely more heavily on primary care providers and local acute care hospitals to meet their MH needs than do urban residents. This reality highlights the importance of integrating primary care and MH services to improve access to needed care in rural communities. Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) are ideally positioned to help meet rural MH needs as 60 percent manage at least one Rural Health Clinic (RHC). RHCs receive Medicare cost-based reimbursement for a defined package of services including those provided by doctoral-level clinical psychologists (CPs) and licensed clinical social workers (LCSWs).

This policy brief explores the extent to which CAH-based RHCs are employing CPs and/or LCSWs to provide MH services, describes models of MH services implemented by CAH-based RHCs, examines their successes and challenges in doing so, and provides a resource to assist CAH and RHC leaders in developing MH services. It also provides a resource for State Flex Programs to work with CAH-based RHCs in the development of MH services.

A short brief from the Rural Health Value Team examines the conflict between the long-term transition to value-based care and the immediate needs brought by the pandemic. Find more information here.

The Medicaid and CHIP Payment and Access Commission (MACPAC) recently released its June 2020 Report to Congress on Medicaid and CHIP, which contains six chapters addressing some fundamental challenges facing Medicaid: improving integration of care for low-income people age 65 and older, and people with disabilities who are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare; ensuring that Medicaid is the payer of last resort when its beneficiaries also have coverage from another insurance program; and addressing concerns about high rates of maternal morbidity and mortality. Rural considerations feature prominently in Chapter 5 on maternal health. Read more here.

On June 15, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) released its June 2020 Report to the Congress: Medicare and the Health Care Delivery System. Each June, as part of its mandate from the Congress, MedPAC reports on issues affecting the Medicare program as well as broader changes in health care delivery and the market for health care services. Chapter 7 on Medicare’s end-stage renal disease prospective payment system discusses rural payment adjustments. Read more here.

Major depression remains a relatively common health problem, but little is known about the prevalence of major depression and its treatment in non-metropolitan areas as compared to metropolitan areas. Using 2017 data from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health researchers at the Rural and Underserved Research Center estimated and compared between non-metropolitan and metropolitan adults the prevalence of depression, receipt of treatment for depression, and sources of treatment for depression. Read more here.

In its Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) examined deaths due to pneumoconiosis – preventable occupational lung disease caused by inhaling dust particles such as coal or mineral dust.  From 1968 to 2000, death rates for all pneumoconioses decreased, though preventable deaths continue to occur.  Read more here.

A new study published in the Journal of Children and Poverty finds an association between family economic hardship and child mental health conditions.  Researchers at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) based the study on data from the 2016 and 2017 National Surveys of Children’s Health, which is a nationally representative survey of U.S. Children ages 0 to 17. Read more here.

The report from the National Association of State EMS Officials describes emergency medical services at the state and national levels and includes sources and amounts of federal funding, including the Federal Office of Rural Health Policy.