One-in-five hospitals in rural areas are at risk of closing despite being vital to their communities, according to a new Navigant Consulting study released Thursday.
The hardest-hit regions would be the South and Midwest, including Mississippi, Alabama, Kansas, Georgia, and Minnesota. Southern states have higher uninsured rates than the rest of the country, according to Kaiser Family Foundation research, making them particularly vulnerable.
David Mosley, one of the co-authors of the study and a managing director at Navigant, said: “Our analysis shines a new light on a rural hospital crisis that must be addressed and could significantly worsen with any downturn in the economy. Local, state, and federal politicians, as well as health system administrators, need to act.”
The Navigant study shows that 64 percent of at-risk hospitals are essential to rural communities. Those rural hospitals are struggling in part because of low population growth in these areas, which contributes to an excess of inpatient beds and makes it harder for hospitals to get capital to upgrade their technology.
Representatives of states with rural populations are aware of the problem. Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, Amy Klobuchar, D-Minn., and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., have acknowledged this problem by introducing the Rural Emergency Acute Care Hospital Act. The measure would create a new Medicare classification under which rural hospitals would offer emergency and outpatient services but would not include inpatient beds. Hospitals in their states are most at risk of shutting down.
