Hundreds of hospitals in rural parts of the United States are in danger of closing because they can no longer afford to stay open, according to a new report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform. The main reason: Insurance companies pay them much less than their big city counterparts for the same services.
In Trinity, Texas, about 90 miles north of Houston, Midcoast Medical Center recently had to close its doors.
“It has a huge impact on the community. We will lose lives. Four hundred people a month come here,” Marjory Pulvino, who runs the hospital’s board, told CBS News.
In the East Texas Piney Woods, Midcoast was more than a building. It was a lifeline where babies were born and where the heart of Cathy Courtney’s 90-year-old husband was restarted, saving his life.
Courtney said she and her husband had used the facility “about six times in the last 14 months.”
Midcoast officials told CBS News the closure was driven by the same factors that have closed other rural hospitals: low reimbursement rates from elderly patients’ Medicare and Medicaid coverage, which made up most of the hospital’s budget.
Hospitals in urban areas, meanwhile, get significantly more reimbursement from their patients who have private insurance, which tends to pay more.
Republicans’ proposed cuts to Medicaid could leave more than 8.5 million people uninsured, according to the Congressional Budget Office, and force even more rural hospitals to close.
The Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform’s report found that 742 rural hospitals are at risk of closing, with over 300 of those being classified as being at “immediate risk.”
Courtney’s husband is now home and doing well, but the 87-year-old said she worries that if there’s another emergency, they won’t make it to the nearest hospital now that Midcoast is closed.
While Midcoast was a 10-minute drive, the closest medical center is now more than half an hour away, Courtney said.
Janet Shamlian is a CBS News correspondent based in Houston, Texas. In a career that spans three decades, Shamlian has covered many of the biggest national and international stories of our time.
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