When it comes to persuading people to get a COVID-19 vaccine, health care professionals are influential. But in some rural communities, hospital staff themselves are hanging back.
In Kansas City, hospitals are treating local COVID-19 patients as well as patients transferred from rural counties in Missouri and Kansas, where there's no mandate or culture for wearing masks.
The federal loans were meant to help hospitals survive the COVID-19 pandemic. Yet they're coming due now — at a time when many rural hospitals are still desperate for help.
America's rural hospitals were struggling even before the pandemic. Now, the loss of revenue from months of deferred treatments and surgeries have pulled more to the brink, as federal relief fades.
Small-town hospitals were already closing at an alarming rate before COVID-19, but now the trend appears to be accelerating just as the disease arrives in rural America.
About half of U.S. rural hospitals operate in the red on a good day. Now facing a pandemic, hospital CEOs warn that, without federal help, their doors may close when the community most needs them.
Health care has consistently polled as the No. 1 issue for Iowa voters. As they prepare to caucus, voters weigh which candidate to support and what health care should look like in the future.
State regulators and even one medevac company have raised doubts about prepaid subscriptions and promised benefits offered by air ambulance companies. Gaps in coverage can be a problem.
The loss of the longtime hospital in Fort Scott, Kan., has forced a change in the way ER care is provided, including a greater reliance on air ambulances.
Recruiting doctors to come to work in rural hospitals has always been a challenge, especially in a hot job market. But some hospitals in remote areas are finding ways to lure much-needed talent.
Advances in online tech are revolutionizinghealth care, with patients now emailing doctors, filling prescriptions or even getting therapy via a video session.But what if you can't afford broadband?
As the rural town of Fort Scott, Kan., grapples with the closure of its hospital, cancer patients bear a heavy burden. They now have to go elsewhere for treatments they used to get locally.
A new poll from NPR, Harvard and the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation gives a glimpse into rural life in America today, finding that many people living in rural communities live on the edge financially.
People in Fort Scott, Kan., depended on their local hospital for more than a century. In December, the hospital closed. Fort Scott residents now are trying to cope with life without it.
Celina, Tenn., has long lured retirees, with its scenic hills and affordability. These newcomers help fuel the local economy. But a recent hospital closure makes the town a harder sell.
Now that Colorado has expanded Medicaid coverage to include more low-income residents, hospitals are better off financially. But that hasn't stopped them from shifting costs to other insured patients.
After 130 years as a nonprofit hospital with deep roots in North Carolina, Mission Health is seeking to be bought by HCA Healthcare, the nation's largest for-profit hospital chain.
Management consultants have been buying up struggling rural hospitals, claiming they can turn their finances around. But are those strategies in the hospitals' best interest?
