Workforce, Nondiscrimination, and Other Final Rules with Impacts for RHCs Over the last several weeks, the HHS Office of Civil Rights (OCR), Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), Department of Labor (DOL), and the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) all released massive final rules covering policies ranging from overtime eligibility to nondiscrimination to Medicaid access and transparency. NARHC has compiled initial summaries of each rule of impact and interest to the RHC community. Please see each notable rule linked below. ·Medicaid Access and Transparency Medicaid Fee-For-Servic ..read more

The Alabama Rural Health Association is pleased to welcome six new board members who will begin a three-year term on July 1, 2024. These new board members were nominated and voted by their member peers throughout the state. They are as follows: Lamont Dupree Executive Director North Alabama Area Health Education Center Lamont Dupree is the new Executive Director of North Alabama Area Health Education Center (NA-AHEC) in Huntsville, AL. He served in numerous positions for NA-AHEC since 2015 including Associate Director most recently. During this time, Lamont oversaw the Center’s community healt ..read more

May 22, 2023 Former U.S. Senator Richard Shelby of Alabama was recently awarded the Alabama Rural Health Association’s ‘Legislator of the Year’ award at the 2023 annual conference in Hoover. “Senator Shelby and his staff were always receptive to our advocacy for issues around rural health and other issues that impact rural Alabama,” said Farrell Turner, president of the Alabama Rural Health Association (ARHA). ARHA is the state’s leader in supporting and promoting rural healthcare. With a membership of more than 1,000 healthcare professionals statewide, the association is one of the largest i ..read more

The next cohort for the Delta Region Community Health Systems Development (DRCHSD) Program is forming now. They are accepting applications from interested facilities now to begin programming in Winter 2023. To learn more about the program and application process, you are invited to attend an informational webinars for hospitals and FQHCs on Tuesday, June 6th from 11am-12pm CST and for RHCs and small clinics on Thursday, June 29th from 11am-12pm CST. The DRCHSD program is a collaboration between FORHP, DRA and the N ..read more

The Alabama Rural Health Association is pleased to welcome two new board members who were inducted at the 2023 Annual Conference in Hoover last month.  These two board members are Dawna Nelson, Ph.D., and Melanie Baucom, DNP, CRNP. Dawna Nelson is an alumna of and current faculty member at Alabama State University. She is a research fellow for the Alabama Commission of Higher Education (ACHE) focused on rural healthcare workforce development. She facilitated our Rural Road show in Montgomery this past year. She brings lived experience as a member of the Black community as well as her prof ..read more

Dale Quinney, former ARHA Executive Director, won the National Rural Health Association’s President’s Award in 2022. Below is the announcement from NRHA in recognition of Dale’s achievements: —– As the Executive Director of the Alabama Rural Health Association for 16 years, Dale Quinney has made a difference by using data to deliver powerful messages promoting rural health. His special talent is knowing how to present data to generate the reaction that is needed to enact change. In 2009 and again in 2013, Dale produced the Selected Health Status Indicator Reports for each of Alabama’s 67 coun ..read more

The Alabama Rural Health Association, in effort to learn more about the needs of its members, conducted a four-part information gathering roadshow during the month of November, 2022.  Traveling to four locations, Montgomery, Hartselle, Atmore, and Livingston, more than 150 rural constituents and stakeholders participated in a series of listening sessions.  During these sessions, they were presented with data regarding rural health in Alabama, and then broke into four groups to discuss what their experiences have been and what improvements could be made to policies and strategy to rur ..read more

The US Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has released a list of Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSAs) slated for removal. Each year HRSA adds and reduces HPSAs based on the result of survey data from providers that determines how many are located in different counties compared to the population of those counties. HPSAs are designated for shortages of primary care, dental or mental health professionals in certain geographic areas, population groups and/or facilities. The lists of designated HPSAs are reviewed, revised and published annually on the HRSA Data Warehouse shor ..read more

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) has announced it has shortened the recommended isolation and quarantine period for people with COVID-19 to five days, if asymptomatic and if persons can wear a mask when around others.  These updates are recommended as the Omicron variant continues to spread throughout the U.S. and reflect the current science on when and for how long a person is most infectious. Emerging information with the Omicron variant demonstrates that the majority of SARS-CoV-2 transmissions occur early in the course of illness, generally in the one to two days p ..read more

Yesterday, CMS released the interim final regulations requiring COVID-19 vaccination of eligible staff at health care facilities that participate in the Medicare and Medicaid programs. These requirements will apply to approximately 76,000 providers and cover over 17 million health care workers across the country. Facilities covered by this regulation must establish a policy ensuring all eligible staff have received the first dose of a two-dose COVID-19 vaccine or a one-dose COVID-19 vaccine prior to providing any care, treatment, or other services by December 5, 2021. All eligi ..read more