title: Using grant funding for innovative projects.
abstract: As part of the Balanced Budget Act of 1997, Congress created the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program for limited-service hospitals. The program is intended to bolster fragile rural service through network development. As part of the program, states may create a program to convert hospitals to critical access hospital (CAH) status. CAH designation gives very small, rural hospitals staffing flexibility for providing emergency, outpatient, and short-stay inpatient services and Medicare reimbursement on a reasonable cost basis. Michigan now has 14 critical access hospitals.
authors.affiliation: lappel@lans.mha.org
authors.forename: L
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Appel
mesh_terms: D019468:Disease Management; D006293:Health Promotion; D006749:Hospital Design and Construction; D006780:Hospitals, Rural / Q000191:economics / Q000458:organization & administration*; D020407:Internet; D016344:Medicare Part A / Q000458:organization & administration*; D008824:Michigan; D009936:Organizational Innovation / Q000191:economics*; D010044:Outpatient Clinics, Hospital; D014481:United States