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Thanks for reading Health Affairs Today. We will be taking a break this Monday as part of our Memorial Day holiday. We will return to your inbox next Tuesday.

Rural Hospital Patient Volume Volatility During The Pandemic

In the May issue of Health Affairs, Joanna Jiang of the Agency for Healthcare Research and Quality and coauthors examine fluctuations in patient volumes in rural and urban hospitals during the COVID-19 pandemic.

The researchers find that “about 35 percent of rural hospitals experienced fluctuations exceeding 20 percent (in either direction) in average daily total volume, in contrast to only 13 percent of urban hospitals experiencing similar magnitudes of changes.”

The authors suggest that these trends could be attributed to more variability in community COVID-19 burden around rural hospitals.

Rural hospitals that experienced more fluctuation in inpatient volume were more likely to be smaller and government-owned.

More on Costs and Spending

• Ground Ambulance Billing And Prices Differ By Ownership Structure by Loren Adler et al.
• Frequency Of Indirect Billing To Medicare For Nurse Practitioner And Physician Assistant Office Visits by Sadiq Y. Patel et al.
• A Health Podyssey: Sean Dickson on Therapeutics' Impact on Pharmaceutical Prices & Drug Spending

Following the Rules: Nursing Facilities' Staffing and Organ Transplants

Health Affairs' Jeff Byers talks with Marianne Amoss about recent federal rulemaking activity over nursing facility staff levels and CMS' proposed mandatory kidney transplant value-based model.

The June 2024 issue of Health Affairs focuses on the topic: "Reimagining Public Health."

In this issue, contributors set out to answer an important question: What might it look like to reimagine public health care and the systems that support the health of the community?

You are invited to join us on Wednesday, June 5, from 1:00 p.m. to 4:00 p.m. (Eastern), for a virtual forum at which authors will present their work, engage in discussions, and answer questions on important issues.

Too Little, Too Late: Initial Launch Prices And Access To Cures For Medicaid Enrollees

Stacie B. Dusetzina

Health Care's Role In Ending Homelessness

Vanessa Davis et al.