Report: “Georgia’s Rural Hospitals at Risk of Closure” Citing Failure to Expand Medicaid

Georgia rural hospital CEO: “We really do need Medicaid expansion”

Rural hospitals have significantly cut medical services to stay open

A shocking new report from Chartis, and first reported in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, found that 18 of Georgia’s 30 remaining rural hospitals are at risk of closure, with Georgia Republicans’ failure to expand Medicaid named as a key factor. 

“Not expanding Medicaid is hurting Georgia,” said Michael Topchik, the study’s author. “It’s not a political statement, it’s just what the data says.” 

“Georgia Republicans’ failure to fully expand Medicaid has left 60% of our rural hospitals on the brink of failure,” said DPG Executive Director Tolulope Kevin Olasanoye. “The Georgians who currently have no choice but to travel multiple hours just to see a doctor need real health care and real leadership: they’re getting neither from Brian Kemp and Republican leadership who again refused to expand Medicaid this legislative session.”

To stay financially viable, rural hospitals have significantly curtailed medical services — according to the report, 23 rural Georgia hospitals recently stopped offering chemotherapy — and patients are feeling the effects. The report finds that rural residents are now 43% more likely to die from common illnesses than city dwellers. It’s even worse for rural women, due to lapses in pregnancy-related care.

“There’s considerable evidence that Medicaid helps rural hospitals,” said Mark Holmes of the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health. “In my state, North Carolina, members of the General Assembly were uncomfortable with Medicaid expansion until they understood the connection between Medicaid expansion and protecting rural hospitals.” 

Read the story from the Atlanta Journal-Constitution below:

AJC: Georgia’s rural hospitals at risk of closure, report finds
Michael Scaturro – Special to the AJC; 4/11/2024

• In Georgia, 18 rural hospitals are at risk of closure, according to a recent report by Chartis, out of 30 rural hospitals in the state.
  
• Half of the country’s rural hospitals are running at a loss, leading to service cuts in Georgia and other states, according to Chartis, a healthcare advisory firm. Texas had the most rural hospitals vulnerable to closure in the analysis, with 45, followed by Kansas (38), Nebraska (29), Oklahoma (22), North Carolina (19), and Georgia and Mississippi (18 each).

• But the firm points out the decision by Georgia and some other states to not accept a federally funded expansion of Medicaid has left more people without insurance — and rural hospitals with unpaid bills. Medicaid was one of nine indicators Chartis found had a significant impact on rural hospitals’ vulnerability.
  
• “There’s considerable evidence that Medicaid helps rural hospitals,” Mark Holmes of the University of North Carolina Gillings School of Global Public Health, told The Atlanta Journal-Constitution. “In my state, North Carolina, members of the General Assembly were uncomfortable with Medicaid expansion until they understood the connection between Medicaid expansion and protecting rural hospitals.”
  
• “Not expanding Medicaid is hurting Georgia,” Michael Topchik, the study’s author, told the AJC. “It’s not a political statement, it’s just what the data says.”
  
• Medicaid expansion improves rural hospitals’ financial performance because people who might have gone without insurance and not paid their hospital bills instead get coverage and hospitals get reimbursed for their care.
  
• People in rural America now have a 43% higher chance of dying from common illnesses than Americans living in cities, data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention revealed. Rural women are disproportionately affected, due to lapses in pregnancy-related care, according to the health policy research organization KFF.
  
• In Georgia, 23 rural hospitals have stopped offering chemotherapy over the last decade, Topchik of Chartis said, in an attempt to remain financially viable.
  
• Although rural hospital instability is national in scope, facilities in states that have not expanded Medicaid have consistently performed worse financially than their expansion state counterparts, Topchik said. Georgia is one of ten remaining U.S. states to oppose Medicaid expansion, according to KFF.
  
• [Angela] Ammons [CEO of Clinch Memorial Hospital, a 25-bed rural hospital in Homerville in Clinch County] says her hospital had $1.7 million dollars in bad debt last year from uninsured patients, despite enrolling patients in programs that help cover unpaid bills.
  
• “We really do need Medicaid expansion,” [Ammons] said.

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