rural health care

North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services Kody Kinsley discusses the impact of Medicaid expansion on prescriptions during a news conference at the North Carolina Executive Mansion in Raleigh, N.C., on Friday, July 12, 2024. MAKIYA SEMINERA/AP

Health & Safety

North Carolina's health disparities report shows a quickly aging population and lack of rural health care access

10:14am September 20, 2024

In a new report released by the North Carolina Department of Health and Human Services, the state statistics show North Carolinians are getting older and lack access to health care the more rural they are.

Health & Safety

New specialty medical services coming to Rockingham County following Cone Health investment

2:00pm September 05, 2024

by Santiago Ochoa

Greensboro-based Cone Health announced this week a multimillion-dollar renovation project aimed at increasing access to healthcare in rural communities.

Hospitals in rural America face a dire financial forecast. The government has an incentive plan to help them keep their emergency departments open, while shutting their inpatient services.

Health & Safety

Federal fix for rural hospitals gets few takers so far

5:00am January 10, 2024

Just 18 facilities were converted into Rural Emergency Hospitals so far. Advocates and lawmakers say tweaks to the law are needed to widen the reach and keep health care in rural communities.

Kaniya Pierre Louis (left) is a third-year medical student shadowing Dr. Zita Magloire for the day. Pierre Louis says she appreciates Magloire as a role model and an example of excellence.

Health & Safety

Can family doctors deliver rural America from its maternal health crisis?

4:43pm December 18, 2023

by Sarah Jane Tribble

More than half of American counties don't have an obstetrician. Family physicians, working in teams with proper support, could be the answer to the crisis in rural obstetric care.

DocGo, a New York-based medical company, has partnered with Dollar General to test whether patients will use urgent and primary care from a van parked in the retail giant's parking lots.

Health & Safety

A mobile clinic parked at a Dollar General? It says a lot about rural health care

4:23pm October 11, 2023

by Sarah Jane Tribble

Dollar General's primary care experiment could help solve rural America's care shortage. But it's getting a chilly reception in Tennessee.

Queue Listen Now

Dr. Terry Vester examines Charity Hodge at Vester's clinic in LaFayette, Alabama. Vester and her husband are the only primary care doctors in the community.

Health & Safety

Just two doctors serve this small Alabama town. What's next when they want to retire?

4:12pm September 19, 2023

by Arielle Zionts

Like much of rural America, LaFayette, Alabama, has no hospital or urgent care clinic. As the town's two primary care doctors approach retirement, some experiments are bubbling up to care for people.

Sharon Hudson (left) has advanced Alzheimer's. But she smiles and giggles when her daughter, Lana Obermeyer, visits at the Good Samaritan Society nursing home in Syracuse, Nebraska.

Health & Safety

Rural nursing home operators say new staff rules would cause more closures

5:01am September 14, 2023

by Tony Leys

The Biden administration says a recently proposed minimum staffing standard would help ensure quality care, but nursing home leaders predict it will accelerate a trend of closures in rural America.

Clinics in rural areas with fewer doctors, dentists and nurses are turning to mobile health care clinics to take care to where it's most needed. The Healthy Communities Coalition organizes a few mobile dental events each year in Lyon County, Nev.

Clinics on wheels bring doctors and dentists to health care deserts

11:11am March 17, 2023

by Jazmin Orozco Rodriguez

Health care vans that provided COVID testing and vaccines in the pandemic are now providing a range of health services in hard-to-reach communities. New access to federal funds could expand the trend.

Rural communities with struggling hospitals often turn to outside investors willing to take over their health care centers. Some are willing to sell the hospitals for next to nothing to companies that promise to keep them running.

Health & Safety

Buy a rural hospital for $100? Investors pick up struggling institutions for pennies

12:03pm August 16, 2022

by Blake Farmer

Some rural hospitals are in such bad shape, they're selling for next to nothing. One company is snapping several distressed or closed hospitals in rural Tennessee, hoping to turn a profit.

Karen hugs Tony in his wheelchair on April 14, 2022. They now live in Burlington, Wash., and their mobile home no longer exists on the island. They are grateful to be together after being separated for long periods of time during the pandemic.

For two years, this Washington island has grappled with the long reach of COVID

2:38pm May 18, 2022

The virus hit Whidbey Island early in 2020, and photojournalist Lynn Johnson was there. A million deaths later, we return to see how the pandemic has subtly but indelibly altered life there forever.