Missouri has lost 19 hospitals since 2014, with almost a dozen in rural areas and state health officials said many more are struggling to survive as costs rise and patient numbers fall.
While the state has not seen a new closure in the past year, experts warn that many hospitals are still operating on razor-thin margins.
Dave Dillon, vice president of media and public relations for the Missouri Hospital Association, warned that rural health facilities are often the hub of care for their community and when they close, the ripple effects reach far beyond a lack of emergency access to care.
"It often is the organization that recruits physicians and other caregivers to work locally," Dillon pointed out. "By extension, those professionals in those communities that rural hospitals serve tend to be kind of an economic engine in those communities."
He noted one reason rural hospitals operate on thin margins is that many of their patients depend on Medicare and Medicaid, programs that rarely cover full costs. And proposed federal cuts to Medicaid are expected to make it tougher. In response, analysts said many rural hospitals are forming partnerships with larger health care systems and expanding telemedicine to reach patients locally.
Dillon acknowledged that no two hospitals face the same struggles, and once a rural facility closes, the effects run deeper than an empty building. He stressed reopening is far more difficult than most people realize.
"Not only is it about the bricks-and-mortar component of that, once you begin to lose your physicians, your workers from the bedside all the way through the organization, it becomes difficult to stand another hospital back up," Dillon explained.
Research shows rural hospitals operate on profit margins near 0.5%, compared to more than 2.5% in urban areas. Nationwide, more than 150 rural hospitals have closed since 2010. Dillon added that their long-term survival may hinge on future federal reimbursement rates.
Missouri News Service, a news partner with KRCU Public Radio, originally published this story.
