LINCOLN, Nebraska (KOLN) – The Nebraska Hospital Affiliation and the Nebraska Rural Well being Affiliation launched a roadmap to robust rural well being care on Monday. This doc outlines most of the challenges going through rural healthcare, in addition to proposed legislative methods and options.

Points coated embody reimbursement charges, telemedicine fairness, workforce challenges, and post-acute hospital care.

“This roadmap is our guiding north star with regards to rural Nebraska healthcare,” mentioned NHA President Jeremy Nordquist. “We are going to hearken to well being care leaders and advocate on their behalf to seek out solutions to those essential questions. There is no such thing as a possibility to not.”

Our roadmap focuses on three areas:

• Monetary strain on native hospitals: Within the final two years alone, our hospitals have reported a 20%+ enhance in labor prices, a 15-20% enhance in provides, a ten% enhance in meals and utility prices, and a 35%+ enhance in drug prices. Officers help laws to extend reimbursement charges for Medicaid suppliers in any respect hospitals. With out these will increase, hospitals must make troublesome monetary selections that influence companies and have an effect on entry to care.
• Increasing the agricultural healthcare workforce: In line with the Nebraska Nursing Heart, Nebraska shall be wanting 5,435 nurses by 2025. Her 73 of her 93 Nebraska counties have registered nurse-to-patient ratios beneath the nationwide common. Well being companies are thought-about insufficient in 66 counties in Nebraska. 9 counties in Nebraska haven’t any registered nurses.
• Medicare Benefit Reform: Medicare Benefit is a fast-growing substitute for the unique Medicare and is primarily operated by main insurance coverage corporations. These well being plans have about 27 million members, or about 45% of these eligible for Medicare. When a affected person enrolls in a Medicare Benefit her plan, they usually hand over the freedoms that include conventional Medicare in change for extra advantages. NHA helps laws to extend oversight of Medicare Benefit, making certain that rural vital entry hospitals are reimbursed pretty. The NHA additionally labored to streamline preapproval necessities below the Medicare Benefit Plan.

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