Mortality Rates for Medicare Beneficiaries Admitted to Critical Access and Non–Critical Access Hospitals, 2002-2010

Geographic access to health care for rural Medicare beneficiaries.

CONTEXT Patients in rural areas may use less medical care than those living in urban areas. This could be due to differences in travel distance and time and a utilization of a different mix of generalists and specialists for their care. PURPOSE To compare the travel times, distances, and physician specialty mix of all Medicare patients living in Alaska, Idaho, North Carolina, South Carolina, ...

Language barriers to health care access among Medicare beneficiaries.

This study examined language barriers to health care access among a population-based sample of Medicare seniors in California in 2001 and 2003. Results indicate that Medicare beneficiaries with limited English proficiency (LEP) had less access to a usual source of care and were less likely to receive preventive cancer screening tests. LEP Medicare beneficiaries who also were covered by Medicaid...

30-Day risk-standardized mortality and readmission rates after ischemic stroke in critical access hospitals.

BACKGROUND AND PURPOSE The critical access hospital (CAH) designation was established to provide rural residents with local access to emergency and inpatient care. CAHs, however, have poorer short-term outcomes for pneumonia, heart failure, and myocardial infarction compared with other hospitals. We assessed whether 30-day risk-standardized mortality rates (RSMRs) and risk-standardized readmiss...

Spillovers of Medicare Policies on Non-Medicare Patients: The Case of Critical Access Hospitals

[Very Preliminary and Incomplete Please Do Not Cite] Medicare is largely responsible for the …nancial viability of rural hospitals. The Medicare Flex Program allowed rural hospitals with fewer than 25 beds to convert to a "Critical access hospital" status and receive cost-based reimbursement from Medicare. I …nd that upon conversion, hospitals decrease their inpatient capacity by almost a third...

Three revised requirements for critical access hospitals.