Congress’ most recent budget reconciliation bill included controversial cuts to Medicaid spending. The legislation slashed hundreds of billions of dollars from the program over the next decade, a move that is likely to disproportionately affect rural hospitals and safety-net providers.
To offset the cuts, lawmakers introduced the $50 billion Rural Health Transformation Program (RHTP), a five-year initiative (2026-30) meant to
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rural healthcare
Homeward and Meijer to Enhance Healthcare Access for Rural Michigan Seniors
What You Should Know:
- Homeward®, a technology-enabled rural health platform dedicated to expanding access to quality healthcare, and Meijer, a privately owned, family-operated Midwest retailer, today announced a strategic partnership aimed at improving healthcare access and care coordination for Medicare-eligible residents across Michigan.
- The strategic collaboration will leverage Meijer's extensive pharmacy network and Homeward's innovative health management platform to
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Rural America Loses Independent Physicians and Practices at Alarming Rate, Report Finds
What You Should Know:
- A new report commissioned by the Physicians Advocacy Institute (PAI) and conducted by Avalere reveals a significant decline in the number of independent physicians and medical practices in rural areas of the United States between January 2019 and January 2024.
- The report raises concerns about reduced access to care, rising costs, and a decline in care quality for rural communities.
Report Background/Methodology
The analysis used data from the
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Chicago ARC Launches Health Equity Innovation Venture Collaborative
What You Should Know:
- The Chicago ARC, a new venture collaborative focused on accelerating health equity solutions, has signed Memorandums of Understanding (MOUs) with the University of Chicago Medicine and Sinai Chicago — as the organization’s first Founding Healthcare Partners. The Chicago ARC also officially welcomed Kate Merton, Ph.D., as its executive director.
- The Chicago ARC was founded on the belief that where you live, work and play should be positive drivers of your health
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Rural Health Startup Homeward Emerges with $20M to Support Rural Communities
What You Should Know
- Homeward, a new company focused on improving access to high-quality, affordable primary and specialty care in rural communities launches with an initial $20M investment.
- The organization is rearchitecting care for rural Americans who have a 23% higher mortality rate than those in urban communities.
Homeward – a San Francisco, CA-based mobile, in-person, and telehealth hybrid care model (with specialty and primary care providers) for people
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Crisis in the U.S. Healthcare Workforce: Why It’s Time to introduce AI
One of the many acute challenges during the pandemic has been the departure of approximately 18% of the U.S. healthcare workforce,4 resulting in staffing shortages in hospitals. This has impacted the well-being of the remaining healthcare practitioners 5 as well as their patients – many of whom are deferring care that is vital to disease management and overall maintenance of health,6,7 or who do not have access to timely emergency care.1 Though such challenges may be perceived as insurmountable
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4 Rural Healthcare IT Predictions to Watch in 2022
What You Should Know:
- Azalea Health Innovations Inc. (Azalea Health or Azalea), a leading provider of cloud-based patient management and health IT solutions shares 4 predictions for the new realities of rural healthcare in 2022 and how IT solutions can help them rise to the challenges.
- Two years into the COVID-19 pandemic, the healthcare system is in a precarious position as labor shortages and ever-increasing cyberattacks threaten hospitals’ recovery from COVID-19. However, there are
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OpenLoop Raises $3M to Expand Digital Health Marketplace for Clinicians
What You Should Know:
- Techstars-backed OpenLoop raises $3M in funding to expand digital health marketplace to connect certified clinicians to telehealth opportunities.
- The company plans to use the funding to This financing enables OpenLoop to expedite the development of their marketplace technology and grow their team of experts.
OpenLoop, a Des Moines, Iowa-based virtual health company based in today announced their oversubscribed seed round financing of $3 million led by an
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Is Broadband Access The Missing Key to Improving Rural Healthcare?
The plain truth is that rural America has always had a market failure problem.
In the 1930s, the problem manifests as woefully inadequate telephone and electrical service. The spaces were just too wide open, the potential customers too few, for companies to invest in America’s in-between places.
In response to this market inefficiency, a federal government led by Franklin Roosevelt stepped in and created the Rural Electrification Administration (REA). Within 20 years, phone
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COVID-19 Hastens America’s Reckoning with Rural Healthcare
So long as we could say, “Healthcare is a business,” we could continue to avoid the moral and ethical choices from which such statements shield us.
But then COVID-19 came into the picture and the bottom dropped out of healthcare as a business. Hospitals and health systems are hemorrhaging money; the American Hospital Association estimates total losses will exceed $300 billion by the end of the year.
“The growing number of cases is threatening the very survival of hospitals just
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