Recession and Rural Hospitals – Georgia

Rural hospitals face challenges across the state, By Charles Oliver, August 22, 2010, Dalton Daily Citizen: “The economic downturn, cuts in state and federal health care programs, and attempts by private businesses to rein in their own health care costs have combined to create a ‘perfect storm’ that threatens small rural hospitals across the state, according to Jimmy Lewis, CEO of HomeTown Health, which represents 55 rural hospitals in Georgia including Murray Medical Center. ‘We could wake up tomorrow and have 10 hospitals about to close,’ said Lewis. Forty-one Georgia hospitals have closed since 1980, according to the Georgia Hospital Association, many of them small rural hospitals. The problem that rural hospitals face is that their ‘payer mix’ is typically heavy in patients on Medicare and Medicaid and those without insurance…”