Today, the National Rural Health Association (NRHA) joined the Honorable Greg Walden (R-OR) and the Honorable Earl Pomeroy (D-ND), and many of their colleagues from the House Rural Health Coalition, to unveil a new rural health care bill designed to increase equity and improve access to high quality care in rural America.
The Health Care Access and Rural Equity Act of 2006 (H-CARE) contains many important rural health provisions, including fair rural representation on the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC). Despite an existing requirement for balance between rural and urban representation, MedPAC currently has only one rural health commissioner, out of the 17 appointed, to represent the nearly 27 percent of Medicare beneficiaries that live in rural America. H-Care would ensure proportional representation of rural health interests on MedPAC.
The bill also furthers the Institute of Medicine's (IOM) recommendation to implement demonstration projects in rural communities that test innovative ways to improve health care quality. "We know from experience that collaboration within and among communities is key to high quality care, and that change in small communities and organizations can often be more readily accomplished than at larger facilities," said Hilda R. Heady. Heady spoke on behalf of the NRHA and is the immediate past president of the National Rural Health Association, and associate vice president for rural health at West Virginia University. She continued, "We strongly believe that rural health care providers can not only achieve high performance standards, but can be leaders in the national quality movement. H-CARE gives us the resources to continue these efforts, and to pave the way to higher quality care in rural America and across our land."
The new H-CARE bill incorporates all of the provisions of the The Rural Hospital and Provide Equity Act (S. 3500, HoPE Act) and contains many important rural health provisions including:
- The creation of a Rural Community Hospital (RCH) program, providing the option of Medicare cost-based reimbursement for inpatient and outpatient services for hospitals with 50 or fewer beds.
- The requirement that Medicare Advantage plans pay Critical Access Hospitals at least as much as they would receive under the traditional Medicare program.
- The authorization of $140 million over five years for grants to rural providers to help with the cost of implementing health information technology.
- The mandate of prompt payment to rural pharmacies by Medicare prescription drug plans.
- The re-authorization of Rural Outreach and Network grants. These important programs provide capital investments so that rural communities can plan and launch innovative projects that build networks across providers, increase access to care, and are specifically designed to become self-sufficient.
