Rural hospitals aided by $213M in federal initiative

(The Center Square) – Qualifying rural hospitals in North Carolina will share $213 million from a $50 billion initiative established by the federal Working Families Tax Cuts legislation.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services on Monday said states will be able to “expand access to care in rural communities, strengthen the rural health workforce, modernize rural facilities and technology and support innovative models that bring high-quality, dependable care closer to home.”

North Carolina’s 100 counties are generally considered a split of 80 rural and 20 urban, with about 3 million of the state’s 11 million population. Twenty counties have no hospital, and 35 have no intensive care unit beds.

Twenty hospitals within the state’s Rural Hospital Program are critical access with 25 or fewer beds getting cost-based reimbursement from Medicare, and 11 are small rural facilities with 49 or less beds.

The state has more than 400 rural health facilities, 96 of which are health clinics.

“Today marks a...