The neglected challenge: Saving America’s rural ob care

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Often overlooked in the debate over health care reform are the growing disparities in health outcomes among America’s rural population. Overall mortality and age-adjusted annual death rates from heart disease, cancer, unintentional injury, chronic lower respiratory disease and stroke are all higher in rural compared with urban settings.¹  Americans who live in rural counties are more likely to be obese, older, poorer, and addicted to opioids than their urban counterparts. However, reduced access to high-quality medical care is also a major contributor to adverse health outcomes in rural populations. At the heart of reduced rural access is a shortage in providers and hospitals. Rising health care fixed costs and declining reimbursement are exacerbating the problem. Indeed, it has been estimated that 673 of 2,161 rural hospitals (31.1%) may close over the next 5 years.²

Childbirth is the most common reason for hospitalization in the United States and 28 million women of reproductive age live in rural counties giving birth to 500,000 infants each year.³Rural hospital obstetrical services are especially vulnerable financially due to their very high fixed costs, low patient volumes, and heavy dependence on often-meager Medicaid-based reimbursements. Thus, it shouldn’t come as a surprise that more than half of rural counties in the United States have no hospital obstetrical services, many remaining services are closing at a frightening pace, and maternal and perinatal mortality and/or morbidity are rising as a consequence.  

 

Rural access to obstetrical services is declining

Hung and associates analyzed the availability of inpatient obstetrical services in rural US hospitals between 2004 and 2014 using multiple data sources including the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the American Hospital Association and the Census Bureau.³  They defined rural counties as micropolitan, if they had an urban core of 10,000 to 50,000 residents, and non-core, if no such “urban” core was present. The authors further analyzed their data based on whether the rural county was adjacent to an urban area or not. They found that in 2004, 45% (898) of rural counties had no hospital-based obstetrical service. These counties had significantly fewer family physicians per capita, a higher percentage of African-American women of reproductive age, lower median household incomes, a higher percentage of residents in poverty and their states had more stringent household income thresholds for pregnant women to be eligible for Medicaid – all risk factors for adverse pregnancy outcomes. 

By 2014, a further 9% (179) of rural counties had lost their hospital-based obstetrical services. When compared with micropolitan counties, non-urban core counties were more likely not to have hospital-based obstetrical services (17.6% vs. 58.6%) and were more likely to have lost their inpatient obstetrical service (4.5% vs. 11.2%). Worst yet, 59% of noncore rural US counties not adjacent to an urban area, the most isolated of our population, had no hospital-based obstetrical services in 2004 and by 2014 that share had increased to 69%.

In contrast, rural counties with obstetrical services in 2004 who maintained them over the next decade had significantly more births, more obstetricians and certified nurse midwives per capita, higher median incomes and less stringent income-eligibility thresholds for pregnant women to obtain Medicaid. In 2018, such thresholds varied from an appalling 138% of the federal poverty line in Idaho and South Dakota to a generous 380% in Iowa.⁴

 

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