Flex Resources

Fact Sheets

• Swing Bed Services
  CMS released a Swing Bed Fact Sheet (revised April 2023). The fact sheet outlines the requirements for hospital and critical access hospital swing bed arrangements.
• Center for Rural Health Fact Sheets

Evidence-Based Strategies for Community Engagement and Community Benefit

• Catholic Health Association of the United States
• American Hospital Association - Association for Community Health Improvement
• Evidence-Based Public Health Programs
• A Community Benefit Reporting Toolkit for Critical Access Hospitals
  A toolkit designed to provide guidance to administrators and staff of Critical Access Hospitals (CAHs) in collecting and reporting community benefit data to comply with federal and state community benefit reporting requirements.

Recovery Audit Contracts (RACs) - Contacts & Schedule

• The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) has begun Provider Outreach for the Recovery Audit Contracts (RACs).
• The contacts for detailed information about the RAC and provider outreach schedule include:
  • Your State Hospital Association
  • Your CMS Regional Office or email CMS at RAC@cms.hhs.gov

CAH Finance

• Small Rural Hospital and Clinic Finance 101 Guide
  This is a publication of the Technical Assistance and Services Center (TASC), a program of the National Rural Health Resource Center. This manual was developed for use by state Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility (Flex) Program personnel as well as staff and boards of CAHs. The content is designed to be as non-technical as possible and to provide answers to frequently asked questions regarding CAH finance and financial performance.
• Facilitators of Strong Quality and Financial Outcomes in Critical Access Hospitals
  This brief, by the Flex Monitoring Team, identifies leadership strategies, organizational practices, and external supports that contribute to success in across financial and quality domains.
• Characteristics of Critical Access Hospitals with High Financial and Quality Metrics
  This analysis, by the Flex Monitoring Team, describes how CAHs performed across five financial and five quality benchmarks and identifies organizational and contextual factors associated with strong performance in both areas

Miscellaneous

• Critical Access Hospital Information
  (General CAH info from the Rural Health Information Hub)
  Frequently asked questions regarding the Critical Access Hospital Program.
• Communication Toolkit
  Developed by the Center for Rural Health, this online toolkit is designed to help rural healthcare facilities and organizations tell their story through the media and other means.

Links

• Links
  Contains links pertaining to the Medicare Rural Hospital Flexibility Program.