In diagnosing your local hospital's cutbacks, take a national look

Is your rural hospital cutting staff and services? It may be part of a national trend, and is certainly affected by national phenomena, as Jennifer Gordon of the St. Joseph (Mo.) News-Press makes clear in writing about cutbacks at the small Atchison Hospital, in the Kansas town a few miles downstream on the Missouri River.

"The same set of issues that beset urban hospitals — declining physician reimbursement rates and an increase in patients unable to cover health care costs — affect rural facilities at a greater rate," writes Gordon, right. "On average, rural hospitals serve areas with higher incidences of unemployment and Medicare and Medicaid recipients. They also serve fewer patients and a shrinking population (the 2010 Census revealed Atchison County’s population has decreased 2.8 percent since 1990), which means rural hospitals cannot generate as much revenue as larger facilities."

Gordon's story is a good example of how to use national information to explain local events. To read it, click here.