President Obama is meeting with rural business leaders, farmers, and rural organizations today in Peosta, Iowa.
NRHA President Kris Sparks was invited and traveled to attend this rural economic forum.
As part of the forum, the White House announced a number of initiatives aimed at helping rural communities. Included in this announcement are two initiatives aimed at helping the rural health care safety net:
Critical access hospitals will now be able to recruit doctors from the National Health Service Corps.
Rural hospitals and rural clinicians will be allowed to access current HHS and USDA loan programs to help them purchase software and hardware needed to implement health information technology.
In a public response, NRHA stated the association is grateful to the president for his recognition of the longstanding challenges that rural hospitals face in recruiting physicians.
NRHA also added: "Rural hospitals face significant barriers to providing health care services in rural America. With traditional lack of access to capital, reimbursement inequities, and a crippling rural professional workforce shortage, it is of the utmost importance that any policies take these unique factors into account. Including Critical Access Hospitals in the National Health Service Corps program is a nice step forward in adding another tool to the toolbox that CAHs have to meet the needs of their communities and fulfill their mission as a vital cog in the rural health care safety net."
Physician recruitment solutions and HIT innovations will be highlighted during NRHA's Rural Health Clinic (Sept. 27-28) and Critical Access Hospital (Sept. 28-30) conferences in Kansas City, Mo. Participants will also get the latest from the White House Rural Council and policy updates from D.C.
Click here to register and save $100 today.
