‘When It Starts Getting Into Your Local Hospital, It Becomes Real’

KFF Health News Original

Located about 45 minutes from New Orleans in one of the hardest-hit counties nationally, the 25-bed rural St. James Parish Hospital has hunkered down as staffers became infected, patient intake numbers have doubled, and intubations have skyrocketed. This is what it looks like inside a rural hospital when COVID-19 hits.

Coronavirus Threatens The Lives Of Rural Hospitals Already Stretched To Breaking Point

KFF Health News Original

Almost half of the nation’s rural hospitals operate in the red on a good day. But amid the coronavirus pandemic, rural hospital CEOs warn that soon some may be unable to pay their workers. And their doors may close when the community most needs them.

Abortion-Rights Supporters Fear Loss Of Access If Adventist Saves Hospital

KFF Health News Original

As community hospitals struggle, they often turn to large religious-based hospital groups to bail them out. But that can limit the types of services they offer, especially reproductive health treatment such as abortion.

Listen: How High-Deductible Plans Hurt Rural America

KFF Health News Original

KHN senior correspondent Markian Hawryluk joined Colorado Public Radio’s Avery Lill on “Colorado Matters” to discuss his recent story on how high-deductible health plans are especially hurting the financial health of patients and hospitals in rural America.

Family Doctors In Rural America Tackle Crisis Of Addiction And Pain

KFF Health News Original

For rural physicians, the burden of responding to the opioid epidemic falls squarely on their already loaded shoulders. For one doctor in a small Wisconsin village, there was no question that she wanted to rise to the challenge.

They Enrolled In Medical School To Practice Rural Medicine. What Happened?

KFF Health News Original

Eight years ago, a new medical program opened in Salina, Kan., as an experimental way to promote rural medicine. Hailed as a solution to the rural doctor shortage, only three of its eight newly minted doctors are now working in the most rural communities.

Listen: Five Oklahoma Hospitals Collapsed – What Happened?

KFF Health News Original

KHN Midwest correspondent Lauren Weber joined StateImpact Oklahoma reporter Jackie Fortiér to discuss why a series of rural hospitals collapsed, leaving hundreds of residents without jobs and their communities without lifesaving emergency medical care.

The Collapse Of A Hospital Empire — And Towns Left In The Wreckage

KFF Health News Original

Jorge A. Perez and his management company, EmpowerHMS, helped run an empire of rural hospitals. Now, in a staggering implosion, 12 of them have entered bankruptcy and eight have closed their doors, leaving hundreds of residents without jobs and their communities without lifesaving emergency medical care. So, what happened?