Distances in rural health care can be hard to fathom. A 2018 study found it took rural Americans, on average, 17 minutes to get to a hospital, but only 10 minutes in an urban center.[i] The distance between rural hospitals can be vastly further – in 2019, a National Institutes of Health study noted that hospitals in one rural state were generally at least 50 miles apart.[ii] These areas have been described (without meaning to be pejorative) as “health deserts.”[iii] Small populations, and a growing shortage of physicians in rural areas,[iv] often lead to hospitals in these areas having only one or two physicians in a particular specialty. Advanced health practitioners (AHP’s) with specialty training, such as psychiatric nurse practitioners or certified nurse midwives, can be an excellent way to preserve access to specialty care, particularly when lack of physician coverage would otherwise mean the hospital must divert or transfer emergency patients.Continue Reading It’s a Long Way From Here to There: Advanced Healthcare Practitioners, EMTALA’s Call Coverage Requirements, and Rural Hospitals
Representatives of the Office of Inspector General (OIG) for the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) are reaching out to speak with hundreds of hospital officials nationwide to provide feedback to HHS and to Congress about the most difficult challenges that hospitals are currently facing in responding to COVID-19. The OIG emphasizes that
A teaching hospital in Connecticut affiliated with Yale Medical School is facing age and disability discrimination allegations after imposing mandatory medical testing for doctors 70 and older who seek medical staff privileges. The U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (“EEOC”) has filed suit against Yale New Haven Hospital, claiming that subjecting older physicians to medical testing before renewing their staff privileges violates anti-discrimination laws.
After years of insisting that nursing colleges separately incorporate from related hospitals and hospital systems, causing some schools to relinquish Medicare “pass-through” funding, the 
On November 2, 2017, the House Ways and Means Committee released draft text of H.R. 1, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, proposing significant changes to the Internal Revenue Code. Of particular concern to private hospitals, healthcare systems and educational institutions operating as 501(c)(3) entities is the bill’s proposed termination of the tax exemption available
On June 12, 2017, the Department of Health and Human Services Office of Inspector General (OIG) published a report with the objective of determining whether the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) made proper incentive payments to providers for “meaningful use” of a certified electronic health record (EHR). The report, entitled “