Rural Bypass for Elective Surgeries.

PURPOSE: Rural bypass of Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) for elective inpatient and outpatient surgical procedures has not been studied. Residents choosing to have their elective surgeries elsewhere, when the local CAH provides those surgical services, erode their rural hospital's financial base. The purpose of this research is to describe the elective surgical bypass rate, the procedures most commonly bypassed by rural residents, the distribution of volume among CAHs that offer elective surgical services, and factors predictive of bypass. METHODS: A sample of elective surgery discharges was created from the 2011 Healthcare Cost and Utilization Project State Inpatient Databases and State Ambulatory Surgery Databases for Colorado, North Carolina, Vermont, and Wisconsin. Frequencies of procedures bypassed and CAH volume distribution were performed. Logistic regression was used to model factors associated with rural bypass for elective surgical care. FINDINGS: The rural bypass rate for elective surgical procedures is 48.4%. Procedures bypassed most are operations on the musculoskeletal system, eye, and digestive system. Annual volume distribution for elective surgical procedures among CAHs varied widely. Patients who are younger, medically complex, at higher surgical risk, and have private insurance are at higher odds of bypass. Patients are also more likely to bypass low-volume hospitals. CONCLUSION: Rural hospitals should consider developing surgical services that are performed electively and on an outpatient basis that are attractive to a broader rural population. CAHs that already offer elective surgical procedures and yet who are still bypassed must examine the mutable factors that drive bypass behavior.

2015: Rural Medicare Advantage Enrollment Update.

Key Findings. (1) Rural enrollment in Medicare Advantage (MA) and other prepaid plans increased by 6.8 percent between March 2014 and March 2015 to 2.1 million members, or 21.2 percent of all rural residents eligible for Medicare. This compares to a national enrollment in MA and other prepaid plans of 31.1 percent (16.7 million) of enrollees. (2) Rural enrollment in Health Maintenance Organization (HMO) plans (including point-of-service, or POS, plans), Preferred Provider Organization (PP0) plans, and other pre-paid plans (including Medicare Cost and Program of All-Inclusive Care for the Elderly Plans) all increased by 5-13 percent. (3) Enrollment in private fee-for-service (PFFS) plans continued to decline (decreasing nationally by 15.8 percent and 12.1 percent in rural counties over the period March 2014-2015). Only eight states showed an increase in PFFS plan enrollment. Five states experienced decreases of 50 percent or more. (4) The five states with the highest percentages of rural beneficiaries enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan are Minnesota (51.8 percent), Hawaii (39.4 percent), Pennsylvania (36.2 percent), Wisconsin (35.5 percent), and New York (31.5 percent).