Aug 16 2011
The Obama administration is launching a rural economic initiative that will affect rural doctors and hospitals.
ABC: Obama Unveils New Initiatives To Spur Job Growth In Rural Areas
HHS will modify the National Health Service Corps loan repayment program to allow more than 1,300 small, rural hospitals to recruit new physicians. (The White House estimates that the addition of one new primary care physician in a rural community generates $1.5 million in annual revenue and creates 23 jobs annually.) (Dwyer, 8/16).
Des Moines Register: Obama Announces Business Initiatives
Rural hospitals and clinicians will be linked to loan programs that enable them to purchase health-information technology. Now, rural hospitals tend to have lower financial operating margins and limited capital to make investments needed to purchase hardware, software and other equipment (Eller, 8/16).
This article was reprinted from kaiserhealthnews.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente. |