On May 8, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released the agency’s first Rural Health Strategy intended to provide a proactive approach on healthcare issues to ensure that the nearly one in five individuals who live in rural America have access to high quality, affordable healthcare.
The agency-wide Rural Health Strategy, built on input from rural providers and beneficiaries, focuses on five objectives to achieve the agency’s vision for rural health:
Apply a rural lens to CMS programs and policies
Improve access to care through provider engagement and support
Advance telehealth and telemedicine
Empower patients in rural communities to make decisions about their healthcare
Leverage partnerships to achieve the goals of the CMS Rural Health Strategy
Although the strategy does not explicitly focus on preparedness and response, it does address cross-cutting issues such as rural public health and healthcare capacity, workforce, telemedicine, and partnerships.