The Great Plains.
One big challenge has been the effects of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, in which critical-access hospitals received 101 percent of reasonable costs. Since sequestration — a 2 percent across-the-board cut in Medicare provider payments — took effect in April 2013 such hospitals are receiving 99 percent of their allowable costs.
Jodi Schmidt, president of the National Rural Health Association, elaborated on High Plains Public Radio:
“There are some basic things you would expect to have in a hospital, like television sets and telephones, that Medicare does not consider allowable costs. And then there are a number of physician costs outside of the emergency room and other sorts of operational overhead expense that the government doesn’t consider allowable.”
