Advocacy group says over 30% of rural hospitals are at risk of closing, many immediately; publishes financial data

Maps from Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform; to enlarge, click on it.

More than 30% of the nation's rural hospitals are at risk of closing, partly because special financial aid they got from the federal government during the pandemic has ended, according to the latest analysis of their 2020-22 Medicare cost reports by the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform, a private group.

New York, Alabama and Mississippi have "the highest percentage of rural hospitals at risk of immediate closure," reports Devna Bose of Mississippi Today. In New York, 43% of rural hospitals (22) are considered at risk; it's 37% (19) in Alabama and 34% (25) in Mississippi. The report has numbers and percentages for each state.

A map with figures for each hospital is here (example screenshot below). The group said its analysis was based on examinations of hospitals' financial reports, with the main risk factors being on negative operating margins, losses on patient services and low financial reserves.

Rural hospitals' troubles are often blamed on low rates of reimbursement for Medicare and Medicaid patients, which are a majority of their admissions, but the group says "losses on private insurance patients are the biggest cause of their overall losses."

Here's part of the map that has data for hospitals in 2020-22, highlighting one in Kentucky:

Screenshot of map by Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform at ruralhospitals.chqpr.org