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Dollar General’s pilot mobile clinic program has been touted by company officials, rural health experts, and analysts as a model that could help solve rural America’s primary care shortage. But its Tennessee launch has been met with local skepticism.
Colorado is among several states that ensure schools have access to the opioid overdose reversal medication naloxone for free or at reduced cost. But most districts hadn’t signed up by the start of the school year for a state distribution program amid stigma around the lifesaving treatment.
Mississippi has the highest rate of maternal mortality in the U.S. Now, it also has a federal grant to help in rural areas. The award could signal more flexibility from federal officials.
A breast cancer patient who received similar treatments in two states saw significant differences in cost, illuminating how care in remote areas can come with a stiffer price tag.
Ballad Health, the only hospital system across a large swath of Tennessee and Virginia, has fallen short of quality-of-care and charity care obligations — even as it’s sued thousands of patients for unpaid bills.
“People want covid-19 to be in the rearview mirror,” one nursing home official says. Faced with a slow rollout of the updated covid vaccines, and without state mandates for workers to get vaccinated, most skilled nursing facilities are relying on persuasion to boost vaccination rates among staff and residents.
A small town close to the Colorado-Utah state line strikes it rich with marijuana sales.
Parents, educators, and elected officials agree that investing in school-based prevention efforts could help curb the rising rate of youth drug overdoses. The well-known D.A.R.E. program is one likely choice, but its effectiveness is in question.
As states review their Medicaid rolls after the expiration of a pandemic-era prohibition against kicking recipients off the government insurance program, experts say the lack of help available to rural Americans in navigating insurance options puts them at greater risk of losing health coverage than people in metropolitan areas.
Before covid-19, hepatitis C held the distinction of claiming more American lives each year than any other infectious disease — that’s despite the marketing of several relatively affordable, highly effective treatments.
LaFayette and other rural areas of the country tend to have high rates of health problems but not enough doctors. Many are adapting by investing in nontraditional prevention and treatment options.
The Biden administration says a recently proposed minimum staffing standard would help ensure quality care, but nursing home leaders predict many rural facilities would struggle to meet it.
Residential addiction treatment programs that allow parents to bring their children along have been recognized for their success. But a mix of logistical challenges and low reimbursement rates mean they struggle to stay afloat.
For rural Americans, who live in areas often short of mental health services and die by suicide at a far higher rate than urbanites, the federally mandated crisis phone line is one of the few options to connect with a crisis counselor.
An estimated 32% of adults in Logan County, West Virginia, have been diagnosed with depression, the highest rate in the United States, according to a recent CDC report.
Mississippi has among the highest cervical cancer mortality rates in the U.S. When low-income women can't afford regular preventive care, much less gynecological visits, this highly preventable and treatable cancer becomes a killer.
Studies suggest official numbers vastly underestimate heat-related injuries and illness on the job. To institute protections, the government must calculate their cost — and the cost of inaction.
California’s new lending program for distressed hospitals will provide Madera Community Hospital with interest-free loans of up to $52 million if it can agree on a viable reopening plan with Adventist Health. The state will offer an additional $240.5 million in interest-free loans to 16 other troubled hospitals.
No local hospital and anemic ambulance services mean residents in rural Pickens County, Alabama, are thrown into perilous situations when they have medical emergencies. It’s a kind of medical care roulette that has become a fact of life for rural Americans who live in ambulance deserts.
Community health workers, who often help patients get to their appointments and pick up prescriptions for them, have increasingly been recognized as an integral part of treating chronic illnesses. But state-run Medicaid programs don’t always reimburse them equally, usually excluding those who work on tribal lands.
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