U.S. Senators Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) and Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) continue to push the Biden administration to fully utilize a federal program that has been described as a lifeline for some struggling rural hospitals.
In a joint letter, Hyde-Smith and Grassley pressed the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on its refusal to use the budget-neutral Rural Community Hospital Demonstration (RCHD), despite the program’s proven efficacy for participating rural hospitals and qualifying facilities’ interest in joining.
Congress established the RCHD program in 2003 and reauthorized it three times to sustain a program that uses alternative payment models for rural hospitals facing financial constraints with the Medicare Inpatient Prospec-tive Payment System. CMS last solicited program applications in 2017.
The Anderson Regional Medical Center in Meridian, Highland Community Hospital in Picayune, Marion General Hospital in Columbia are RCHD facilities where innovation models are being tested.