New legislation aims to cut red tape in an effort to keep rural hospitals’ doors open.
A Senate bill introduced Tuesday would help rural hospitals, which have started to close because of Medicare policies, stay open by altering the rules.
Many rural hospitals are designated critical access hospitals by Medicare, meaning they have to keep a certain amount of inpatient beds and an emergency room. Government programs such as Medicare are the main payers for rural hospitals.
But many of the hospitals struggle to get enough patients to keep their status as a critical access hospital, according to statements from Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Cory Gardner, R-Colo., who sponsored the Rural Emergency Acute Care Hospital (REACH) Act.
Since 2010, 53 rural hospitals have closed and 283 are on the brink of closure, according to figures from the National Rural Health Association.
Since hospitals have trouble attracting enough patients, the bill would create a new classification called the Rural Emergency Hospital classification under Medicare. The hospital would have an emergency room and outpatient services but no inpatient beds, according to the senators.
“The bill wouldn’t force any new requirements on hospitals,” according to a statement about the bill. “It simply would offer them a new option.”
It is not clear how many rural hospitals would be affected by the new classification. About half of the 5,000 rural hospitals in the U.S. are considered critical access hospitals, according to a document about the senators’ bill.
Grassley and Gardner’s bill would affect critical access hospitals with fewer than 50 beds in operation as of Jan. 1, 2015, or any hospital fitting that description that closed in the previous five years.
