Saving Rural Health: Rural Hospitals Are Getting Creative to Stay Afloat

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Rural hospitals across the US are facing a crisis. There are more than 1,800 of these hospitals, and about 47% are operating in the red. Nearly 25% are financially unstable. In the last decade alone, more than 120 have closed. Rural hospital closures leave communities without access to critical healthcare.

In order to stay open, rural hospital leaders must get creative.

Alex Kacik, a Modern Healthcare reporter who has covered the topic in-depth, describes some of the key indicators for a rural hospital’s risk of closure — and what leaders can do to keep a hospital afloat.