Patients struggle with aspects of rural healthcare despite high satisfaction
Many consumers looking for prices on a rural healthcare provider's website weren't able to find it, and many were driven to telehealth.
Photo: The Good Brigade/Getty Images
More than 90% of patients in a new survey say they're satisfied with the service provided by local healthcare providers, but they're frustrated with certain aspects of their care, including wait times and price transparency.
The study was conducted by healthcare accounting and consulting firm Wipfli. Its results indicate that a quarter of consumers have shopped around for pricing on a rural healthcare provider's website for services or procedures, and that 20% said that pricing lists provided by healthcare systems influenced their decision to receive care.
And yet, almost 30% of respondents who looked for prices on a rural healthcare provider's website weren't able to find it.
Over the two years since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic, 37% said they experienced longer wait times at their rural healthcare provider. Many of them latched onto telehealth as a technological end-around, with 36% saying they had utilized telehealth services.
Approximately 30% said they prefer using telehealth to seeing their providers in person. Meanwhile, more than half (53%) have put off procedures or checkups over the past two years due to COVID-19.
WHAT'S THE IMPACT?
The price-transparency issue is a thorny one for patients. Many providers, rural and otherwise, are struggling with compliance.
In the federal price transparency rule that took effect January 1, 2021, hospitals were tasked with posting all of their prices online in clear, easily accessible formats. But a February survey from patientrightsadvocate.org has found that, to date, just 14.3% of 1,000 hospitals are compliant with the rule.
About 38% of the hospitals surveyed posted a sufficient amount of negotiated rates, but over half were not compliant in other criteria of the rule, such as rates by each insurer and named plan. At the same time, just 0.5% of hospitals owned by the three largest hospital systems in the country – HCA Healthcare, CommonSpirit Health and Ascension – were in compliance.
The most prevalent omission tagged as "noncompliance" was not posting or the incomplete posting of negotiated prices for each item and service clearly associated with all of the payers and plans accepted by the hospital.
As for rural patients' preference for telehealth, that finding tracks with a December 2021 Rock Health survey, which found that in 2020, 53% of respondents were more satisfied with live video virtual care than in-person interactions. This satisfaction decreased somewhat in 2021, however, with just 43% of respondents reporting the same.
THE LARGER TREND
In November, it was announced that rural providers who serve Medicaid and Medicare beneficiaries are getting $7.5 billion in American Rescue Plan Rural payments. The money will go to providers and suppliers who serve rural Medicaid, Children's Health Insurance Program (CHIP) and Medicare beneficiaries, with an average payment of approximately $170,700, and some ranging from $500 to $43 million.
Rural providers serve a disproportionate number of Medicaid and CHIP patients, who often have more complex medical needs.
They typically operate on thin margins. An estimated 47% of rural providers were operating in the red pre-pandemic. They've said the pandemic has worsened this reality and that they've been challenged financially by the coronavirus pandemic. The Department of Health and Human Services has distributed American Rescue Plan funds for rural providers, including $7.5 billion in November 2021, through the Health Resources and Services Administration.
The funding will help healthcare providers keep their doors open, address workforce challenges, and make up for the lost revenues and increased expenses caused by the pandemic, HHS said.
Twitter: @JELagasse
Email the writer: jeff.lagasse@himssmedia.com
