With hospitals in rural America struggling to stay open because of corporate consolidations and market competition, the Biden Administration introduced a new program that would redesignate the facilities as “emergency care” only, paying them to eliminate long-term care to streamline networks, ABC News reports.
The program creates a new designation called a “rural emergency center,” where patients, ambulances, and others can seek immediate care as they would at a more conventional hospital, but there will be no beds or scheduled operations. These facilities will provide care to stabilize the patient, but patients would be moved to another facility for additional medical treatment or told to seek follow-up care at another medical center or provider.
Nineteen hospitals in the Southeast have joined the program, which targets small hospitals that have already seen significant drops in in-patient care because larger, more modern facilities in nearby towns have taken the patient load. To support these hospitals that continue to play a vital role in providing immediate emergency care for the community, the program has a $3 million budget to split between the participating hospitals, and they’ll receive higher Medicare reimbursements as well.