Rural Hospitals Continue To Fight for Survival

In the past decade, emergency room visits to America's more than 2,000 rural hospitals increased by more than 60 percent, even as those hospitals began to collapse under doctor shortages and historically low operating margins. Rural hospitals treat patients that are on average six years older and 40 percent poorer than those in urban hospitals, which means rural hospitals have suffered disproportionately from government cuts to Medicaid and Medicare reimbursement rates. They also treat a higher percentage of uninsured patients, resulting in unpaid bills and rising debts. A record 46 percent of rural hospitals lost money last year. More than 400 are classified by health officials as being at "high risk of imminent failure." Hundreds more have cut services or turned over control to outside ownership groups in an attempt to stave off closure. Click here to read about the pending closure of one such hospital in rural Oklahoma.