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Chief rural health correspondent Sarah Jane Tribble explains how millions of rural Americans live in counties with doctor shortages and where high-speed internet connections aren鈥檛 adequate to access advanced telehealth services.
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Taxpayers 鈥 through federal infrastructure programs 鈥 have paid billions of dollars to internet companies to hook up rural Americans. Some communities have nothing to show for it, leaving medically vulnerable rural patients disconnected and without access to telehealth.
Technological gaps handicap rural hospitals as billions in federal funding to modernize infrastructure lags. The reliance on outdated technology and piecemeal systems challenge staffs and erode patient care.
Get our weekly newsletter, The Week in Brief, featuring a roundup of our original coverage, Fridays at 2 p.m. ET.
Nearly 3 million Americans live sicker, shorter lives in the hundreds of rural counties where doctor shortages are the worst and poor internet connections mean little or no access to telehealth services.
A remote Wyoming community hoped for years to have more access to health care. Now, after receiving federal funding, it is bucking dismal closure trends throughout the rural U.S. and building its own hospital. And it鈥檚 not the only one.
As the Affordable Connectivity Program runs out of money, millions of people face a jump in internet costs or lost connections if federal lawmakers don't pass a funding extension.
A disconnect between two federal programs meant to help keep hospitals afloat discourages struggling rural facilities from accepting the aid.
With an end-of-year deadline and a presidential election approaching, payment rules that fueled rapid expansion of telehealth in the United States face a last-minute congressional decision.
A federal program that helped pay for more than 23 million low-income households鈥 internet access runs out of money soon. The end of the subsidy launched earlier in the pandemic could have profound impacts on health care access.
You鈥檝e probably seen advertising about Medicare Advantage plans. 吃瓜不打烊' Sarah Jane Tribble explains the pros and cons of this insurance option as enrollment in these plans increases.
Fewer than two dozen rural hospitals were converted into Rural Emergency Hospitals in the program鈥檚 first year. Now, advocates and lawmakers say tweaks to the law are necessary to lure more takers and keep health care in rural communities.
As enrollment in private Medicare Advantage plans grows, so do concerns about how well the insurance works, including from those who say they have become trapped in the private plans as their health declines.
Family medicine doctors already deliver most of rural America's babies, and efforts to train more in obstetrics care are seen as a way to cope with labor and delivery unit closures.
More than half of seniors are enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans instead of traditional Medicare. Rural enrollment has increased fourfold and many small-town hospitals say that threatens their viability.
Dollar General鈥檚 pilot mobile clinic program has been touted by company officials, rural health experts, and analysts as a model that could help solve rural America鈥檚 primary care shortage. But its Tennessee launch has been met with local skepticism.
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.
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