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Rural Hospitals May Get Federal Aid to Reshape as Standalone ERs

  • Extra funding would require removing inpatient hospital beds
  • Grassley measure creates rural emergency hospital designation
Healthcare workers tend to a patient with Covid-19 at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, California on Jan. 11.

Healthcare workers tend to a patient with Covid-19 at Providence St. Mary Medical Center in Apple Valley, California on Jan. 11.

Photographer: Ariana Drehsler/AFP/Getty Images

Updated on

The Biden administration must prioritize and make use of a new measure to aid struggling rural hospitals before more close, Senators Charles Grassley and Amy Klobuchar said.

On Thursday, the pair sent a letter to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services asking the agency to prioritize implementation of a new Rural Emergency Hospital designation. “If nothing is done, more hospitals and rural Americans will continue losing access to essential medical services resulting in poorer outcomes and higher costs for patients and taxpayers,” the senators said in the correspondence.