Acronyms, Definitions, and Additional Resources

ACA - Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act

CAH - Critical Access Hospital

CMS - Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services

FQHC - Federally Qualified Health Center

FTE - Full-Time Equivalent, a unit to measure the equivalent of one person working full-time hours

HPSA - Healthcare Provider Shortage Area

HRSA - U.S. Health Resources & Services Administration

RHC - Rural Health Clinic

SAHIE - Small Area Health Insurance Estimates program of the U.S. Census Bureau




ACRONYMS










DEFINITIONS







How is "rural" defined?

The short answer: it's complicated. Most state and federal definitions define rural communities by what they are not: Metro or Suburban. For consistency, RHA uses HRSA’s definition and their “Rural Eligibility Analyzer” that relies upon U.S. Census Bureau population counts to determine rurality of census tracts.

About Health Professional Shortage Areas (HPSA)

Designation

HPSA designations identify an area, population, or facility that has a shortage of primary care, mental health, or dental providers. Several federal programs use these designations as a means of determining how (and where) to allocate resources.

Score

Scores are based on several criteria including population-to-provider ratio, health and demographic indexes, and travel time to the nearest source of care. Primary Care and Mental Health HPSAs are scored 0 - 25 and Dental HPSAs are scored 0 - 26 (the additional point is based on whether the area's water source is fluoridated), with higher scores indicating more severe need.

Status

HRSA regularly evaluates and assigns a status of “designated,” “proposed for withdrawal,” or “withdrawn for all HPSAs.” This dashboard does not include facilities located in non-HPSA areas since they are no longer included in federal data sets and the communities are not eligible for HRSA funding.

Facility Designations

Providers obtain CAH, FQHC, or RHC designation after meeting specific criteria of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). This qualifies the facility for special reimbursement from CMS and state Medicaid offices. These designations are intended to incentivize providers to serve Medicaid and Medicare eligible populations.

Federal Poverty Measures

The US Census Bureau follows the policy set forth by the Offices of Management and Budget to define poverty thresholds of individuals and families. Thresholds are based on a variety of criteria and adjusted yearly. Poverty levels impact access to reduced-cost health coverage as part of the Patient Protections and Affordable Care Act (ACA), as well as other services such as Medicaid, Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program (SNAP), housing, and other state and federal assistance programs.

Insurance Coverage

The SAHIE provides state and county-level estimates for insurance coverage. To consistently determine whether someone is covered by insurance or not, the SAHIE uses the same definition as the American Community Survey by asking if a person has specific types of insurance coverage.


ADDITIONAL RESOURCES