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1991.09.30 :  Awards -- Medicare Patients in Rural Hospitals

Contact:  Bob Hardy (202) 245-6145
September 30, 1991

       Seven states and 51 rural hospitals have been awarded $9.8
million in federal funds to improve access to medical services for 
Medicare patients in rural areas, HHS Secretary Louis W. Sullivan,
M.D., announced today.  
       The seven states are:  California; Colorado; Kansas; New
York; North Carolina; South Dakota; and West Virginia.  The grants
are being made by the Health Care Financing Administration under
the Essential Access Community Hospital Grant Program.   
       "We are determined to meet the health care needs of the
millions of Medicare beneficiaries living in rural areas,"
Secretary Sullivan said. "This program provides states and rural
hospitals opportunities to restructure the system toward the needs
of their particular communities."
       States will use the funds to develop a network of rural
health-care providers linked by a communications system and
emergency transportation.  The network itself will be established
by assisting some small rural hospitals to finance the cost of
converting to Rural Primary Care Hospitals, a new type of limited-
service health-care facility with no more than six beds.  Such
facilities may use nurse
practitioners and physicians' assistants to provide limited inpatient
care for up to 72 hours for patients requiring stabilization before
discharge or transfer to another hospital.  Emergency services are
also available 24 hours a day.
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    Patients stabilized in rural primary care hospitals can then be
transferred to larger and better-equipped Essential Access Community
Hospitals, designed to serve as referral and transfer facilities. 
Physicians at the rural primary care hospitals have admitting and
treatment privileges at the essential access community hospital that
is part of their rural health-care network.
    "Improved access for Medicare beneficiaries in rural areas 
is of critical concern to us," said HCFA Administrator Gail R. 
Wilensky, Ph.D.  "These grants will finance innovative approaches to
assure primary care and emergency services in areas where it is simply
not feasible to maintain full-service hospitals."

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