States are absorbing substantial increases in healthcare costs for the poor, as they realize that the people remaining on Medicaid rolls after the COVID-19 pandemic are sicker than anticipated and costlier to care for. In Pennsylvania, state budget makers recently unveiled the scale of that miscalculation, with Democratic Gov. Josh Shapiro proposing an increase of $2.5 billion in Medicaid spending in the next fiscal year. That amounts to a roughly 5% increase in overall state spending, mostly driven by the cost-to-care for unexpectedly sick people remaining on the state’s Medicaid rolls. Costs went up partly because some people put off medical treatment during the pandemic, Shapiro’s administration said. As a result, their conditions worsened and became costlier to treat. The Alliance of Community Health Plans last fall asked the federal government to review Medicaid reimbursement rates in Pennsylvania and a handful of other states that it said were unrealistically low and relying on outdated claims data that showed a relatively healthier population of Medicaid enrollees. In Pennsylvania, the $2.5 billion projected Medicaid cost increase will be a big pill to swallow in a state with a slow-growing economy and a shrinking workforce that is delivering relatively meager gains in tax collections. Tax collections are projected to rise by less than $800 million in the 2025-26 fiscal year, and Republican lawmakers are wary about spending down the state’s roughly $10.5 billion surplus for fear of depleting it within a few years.
Kennedy Confirmed as HHS Secretary
The Senate voted to confirm President Trump’s embattled Health and Human Services (HHS) nominee Robert F. Kennedy Jr. The vote: 52-48. Former Senate GOP Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) was the only Republican “no” vote. Kennedy will oversee 13 separate agencies, including a $1.7 trillion budget (that’s more than 20 percent of the U.S.’s spending). During his Senate hearing, Kennedy was grilled by Senator Warner (D-VA) on funding for Community Health Centers. Kennedy responds he and the President completely supports CHCs and no funding will be withheld.
Critical Access Hospital Financial Sustainability Guide
This resource from the National Rural Health Resource Center provides guidance and assistance to state Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) Program personnel, leaders of Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs), and others helping CAHs manage long-term financial stability.
List of Hospitals in the U.S.
The Rural Health Research Program at the University of North Carolina (UNC) compiles a list of all hospitals operating in the U.S. as a downloadable resource to the public. The newest list has all acute care and specialty hospitals that were open as of January 1, 2023, including their addresses, bed counts, rural/urban definitions, CMS rural payment designations (Critical Access Hospitals, Rural Health Clinics, Rural Emergency Hospitals), and more. The UNC research center also keeps a running list of rural hospital closures since January 2005.
Overview of Residency Program Selected for Section 126 Round 3 Graduate Medical Education Slots
– Federal legislation under Section 126 the Consolidation Appropriation Act, 2021 authorizes the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) to distribute additional residency positions (also known as slots) for physician training. RuralGME.org, the FORHP-supported organization that helps hospitals plan and develop rural residencies, has published an analysis of CMS released data on the 109 hospitals that received residency slots via the third round of Section 126 distributions on November 21, 2024. This analysis builds on FORHP’s previous examination of first and second round awardees and uses newly released CMS data to identify the rural status of the training sites of the selected residency programs. The application period for the next round of Medicare-funded slots opened the first week of January and runs through March 31, 2025. Eligible hospitals must use MEARIS, CMS’s online application system to apply for 200 newly available Section 126 slots and the 200 Section 4122 slots. The application period for Medicare-funded slots opened the first week of January and runs through March 31, 2025.
Rural Provider Participation in Medicare ACOs Grows
The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Shared Savings Program Fast Facts, updates data on provider and beneficiary participation in an accountable care organization (ACO). An ACO is a group of healthcare providers that work together to coordinate care for Medicare patients. As of January 2025, 53.4 percent of beneficiaries in Traditional Medicare are enrolled in an accountable care relationship with a provider participating in the Medicare Shared Savings Program (MSSP) and the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (Innovation Center) accountable care models. In MSSP, the number of rural and safety net providers has grown since last year. There are now 2,872 Rural Health Clinics, 547 Critical Access Hospitals, and 7,036 Federally Qualified Health Centers participating.
USDA/NRHA Rural Hospital Technical Assistance
– Ongoing. Through a cooperative agreement with the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA), the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) supports technical assistance for rural hospitals to identify and address local health care needs and strengthen health care systems. The overall goal of the program is to enhance hospital systems for improved efficiency and financial performance, bolster quality of care, and support communities.
New State Fact Sheets from USDA
The Economic Research Service (ERS) at the U.S. Department of Agriculture (USDA) regularly updates data on population, income, poverty, food security, education, employment/unemployment, farm characteristics, farm financial indicators, and agricultural exports for all states and includes breakouts for rural and metropolitan areas. County-level Data Sets include poverty estimates, unemployment, and median household income. A separate ERS report examines the Trends and Patterns of Job Quality in the United States, including wages, employer sponsored health insurance coverage, and retirement benefits between 2000 and 2022.
CMS Connecting Kids to Coverage
– Apply by March 7. The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) will award a total of $66.3 million in grants and cooperative agreements to educate families about the availability of free or low-cost health coverage under Medicaid and the Children’s Health Insurance Program. Eligibility includes State, local, and Tribal governments; Federal health safety net organizations; nonprofits and faith-based organizations; and elementary or secondary schools. A webinar for applicants will be held today at 1:00 pm Eastern.
DEA, HHS Finalize Expansion of Buprenorphine Treatment via Telemedicine
The Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) are amending their regulations to expand the circumstances under which practitioners registered by the Drug Enforcement Administration are authorized to prescribe schedule III-V controlled substances approved by the Food and Drug Administration for the treatment of opioid use disorder via telemedicine, including an audio-only telemedicine encounter. Under these new regulations, after a practitioner reviews the patient’s prescription drug monitoring program data for the state in which the patient is located, the practitioner may prescribe an initial six-month supply of such medications (split amongst several prescriptions totaling six calendar months) through audio-only means.