UNDER PRESSURE FROM HYDE-SMITH & GRASSLEY, CMS MOVES TO ADD MORE RURAL HOSPITALS TO KEY SUPPORT PROGRAM
Senators Advocated for Full Use of Rural Community Hospital Demonstration Program
WASHINGTON, D.C. – U.S. Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) today welcomed a decision by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) to open more slots for rural hospitals to join the Rural Community Hospital Demonstration (RCHD) program.
CMS has indicated it will develop a Request for Application for rural hospitals to make use of 10 available spaces in the RCHD program. This decision comes after sustained advocacy from Hyde-Smith and Grassley, who have pressed CMS to open RCHD and fill vacancies in the program to offer additional support to rural hospitals in need.
“The CMS is finally doing the right thing to give more rural hospitals an opportunity to be part of the RCHD program, which can be a vital lifeline for rural healthcare providers to ensure rural residents have access to care,” Hyde-Smith said. “This has been a successful program and it shouldn’t have taken this long for CMS and the Department of Health and Human Services to act to help rural health care. I hope this new application process opens sooner rather than later.”
“I’m glad to see CMS answer my years-long call and give more rural hospitals a chance to thrive. By fully utilizing this program, rural hospitals will have a better shot at keeping their doors open so they can provide needed services for their local communities,” Grassley said. “CMS should take swift action to begin collecting, reviewing and approving these applications.”
The RCHD program supports financial viability for rural hospitals that are too large to be Critical Access Hospitals and too small to benefit from Medicare’s hospital inpatient prospective payment system. Congress created the RCHD in 2003 and has reauthorized it three times, with 30 available slots—only 20 of which are currently filled.
Hyde-Smith and Grassley in October issued a letter challenging CMS inaction fully using the RCHD program. This followed Hyde-Smith advocating full use of the program at an April appropriations subcommittee hearing with Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra.
The Anderson Regional Medical Center in Meridian, Highland Community Hospital in Picayune, Marion General Hospital in Columbia are RCHD facilities where innovation models are being tested.
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