Luzerne County Community College (LCCC) has launched the L3C Microcredential Academy to address health care workforce shortages in northeastern Pennsylvania, including the demand for dental assistants.
The initiative includes the return of their dental assistant program, creating an accessible pathway for students to earn a health care credential and enter the dental workforce.
From Becker’s Hospital Review
Over 40% of roughly 1,800 U.S. rural hospitals have negative operating margins, with hundreds at high financial risk, according to an Oct. 13 report from the American Hospital Association.
The report, “America’s Rural Hospitals at a Crossroads,” highlights the longstanding structural pressures being compounded by industry and policy changes, threatening care access for the more than 46 million Americans in rural communities.
“The challenges confronting rural hospitals are both longstanding and intensifying,” the report said. “Structural pressures, including low patient volumes, workforce shortages, geographic isolation and inadequate reimbursement, have left many facilities operating on increasingly fragile financial footing. Recent policy changes and payer trends will magnify those pressures, increasing the risk of service reductions and hospital closures.”
Rural hospital closures have also been associated with higher mortality, population decline, slower economic growth, increased unemployment across hospitals and non-healthcare industries, and increased poverty and lower income levels, the report said.
In 2026, Becker’s has reported on just six planned hospital and emergency department closures. At this point in 2025, Becker’s had already reported on 22. While some may view this positively, many healthcare leaders suggest the financial strain hasn’t eased but is showing up in areas like service line cuts and rural emergency hospital conversions and consolidations.
Here are eight findings from the report:
“Rural hospitals continue to respond through innovation, partnerships, telehealth expansion and care redesign,” the report said. “But innovation cannot offset inadequate payment and mounting financial instability on its own. Policymakers should reverse the harmful cuts to Medicaid under OBBBA and ensure [Rural Health Transformation Program] dollars flow directly to hospitals, rather than being absorbed elsewhere, so that funding matches the scale of what rural communities have lost.”
The Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) recently awarded over $1.6 million to 14 new grantees of the Rural Northern Border Network Planning Program.
Funds going to these organizations located in the federally designated Northern Border Region will support their efforts to develop integrated health networks and conduct planning activities over the course of one year, with the goal of expanding access and improving quality of care in the communities they serve. The project period is September 30, 2026, through September 29, 2027.
The Health Resources and Services Administration’s (HRSA) Maternal and Child Health Bureau (MCHB) released the 2025 dataset on their annual survey of the physical and emotional well-being of children up to age 17 in the 50 U.S. states and the District of Columbia.
Through partnership with FORHP, MCHB also released a data brief on Rural Children’s Health and Well-Being based on the survey taken by parents and caregivers last year.
Federal Office of Rural Health Policy (FORHP)-supported research released recently from the University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center found that, between 2007 and 2023, the percentage of midwife-attended births rose in both rural and urban settings and was higher in states that had full practice authority policies.
Researchers used data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention and from the American College of Nurse-Midwives, which defines full practice authority as state-level policy allowing certified nurse midwives (CNMs) and Certified Midwives (CM) to practice to the full extent of their education, training, and certification without required oversight by a physician.
The University of Minnesota Rural Health Research Center has several completed projects on midwifery care for rural residents and many others on subjects related to rural maternity care on the FORHP-supported Rural Health Research Gateway.
This Q&A report from the Government Accountability Office (GAO) gives overview and detail of the initial steps taken by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) in establishing the RHT program, examining CMS’s plans for monitoring states’ activities, and describing CMS’s approach for determining future funding allotments.
The GAO is an independent, nonpartisan agency that investigates how Federal funds are spent and reports those findings to Congress and the heads of agencies in the executive branch.
New findings from HRSA’s Ryan White HIV/AIDS Bureau (HAB) demonstrate the positive impact of HRSA funding on improving access and outcomes for rural residents living with HIV and AIDS. The Ryan White HIV AIDS programs funds cities, counties, states, and local community-based organizations to provide HIV care, treatment, and essential services to more than 600,000 people across the United States and U.S. territories.
This fact sheet gives an overview of HAB’s activities in rural areas for the year 2024 with data on services delivered, impact, and available resources.
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has finalized this rule, which will test whether using international drug prices to calculate manufacturer rebates for certain high-cost Medicare Part B drugs can reduce costs for beneficiaries and Medicare while preserving or improving quality of care.
Drug manufacturers included in the model will be required to participate and may owe rebates to Medicare when U.S. drug prices are higher than prices in economically comparable countries. The model will operate in randomly selected geographic areas, and beginning April 1, 2027, eligible beneficiaries in those areas may pay lower coinsurance when they receive a GLOBE drug. Health care providers are not model participants and will continue to buy, bill, and receive payment for these drugs as usual; when beneficiary coinsurance is reduced, Medicare will increase its share of the payment so that the Medicare allowed amount does not decrease.
For drugs purchased through the 340B Drug Pricing Program, CMS will exclude 340B billing units when calculating manufacturer rebates under GLOBE and will monitor the model’s potential effects on 340B drug prices. The model begins January 1, 2027; CMS will publish the selected geographic areas by ZIP Code by January 16, 2027; and the five performance years will run from April 1, 2027, through March 31, 2032.
The U.S. Departments of Health and Human Services, Labor, and the Treasury finalized changes to federal Transparency in Coverage requirements intended to make health plan pricing information easier to access, compare, and use.
The final rule requires non-grandfathered group health plans and health insurance issuers to standardize and improve their publicly available machine-readable pricing files, including by reporting in-network rates at the provider-network level, adding information about provider utilization and specialty, and making files easier to locate on plan and issuer websites. The rule also reduces required updates for in-network and out-of-network pricing files from monthly to quarterly and expands the amount of out-of-network pricing information reported.
Beginning with plan or policy years on or after January 1, 2027, plans and issuers must also make certain individualized cost-sharing information available by phone, in addition to existing online and paper options.
Presented by the National Association of Community Health Centers, this resource showcases innovative partnerships between health centers and rural hospitals that are redefining how communities address workforce shortages, access barriers, and population health challenges.
Drawing from successful collaborations in three states, these case studies illustrate how shared vision, coordinated services, and community-centered investments can build adaptable rural health systems and advance long-term community well-being.
