Grassley talks healthcare at hospital visit

Rural healthcare issues were topics of discussion during Senator Charles Grassley’s visit to Adair County Tuesday, Aug. 16 in the Adair County Health Systems’ ambulance garage.

The veteran senator spoke about several dilemmas rural healthcare faces today and gave answers as to what he has tried to do to remedy them.

“The importance of rural healthcare is an important question not only for healthcare but because hospitals in a community are often a community’s largest employer,” Grassley said. “That not only means jobs in a community but it also connects it to economic development.”

Grassley first stressed legislation that he helped pass called the Rural Emergency Hospital program that would allow rural hospitals with 50 beds or less who want to remove inpatient services and only provide outpatient services like emergency care to make that choice. This is because of the high cost that accompanies having inpatient beds.

“I see that as an opportunity to keep the basics of healthcare within the communities that have it now. Not so much in Iowa, but nationwide I think about 120 rural hospitals have closed down,” Grassley said. “We saw that coming, and that’s why I got that legislation passed that will leave it up to local communities as to what they want to do in that area.”

Grassley also answered questions relating to hospitals getting reimbursed for telemedicine, the workforce in rural hospitals, as well as the high cost of having an ambulance service.

The pandemic has proven the value of telemedicine, Grassley stated. He said that except for telemedicine for mental health, it is not permanent and is being done through waiver.

The issue of setting legislation relating to telemedicine will likely come once the public health emergency declaration is lifted by President Joe Biden, Grassley said.

“There was a bill that would force Congress to act within six months after that on legislation for almost everything that’s being done by waiver right now because of the pandemic,” Grassley said.

The senator also said that broadband will hopefully be improved once a map being developed covering underserved areas is better developed. That would also be a boon to telemedicine.

The emphasis that has been placed on paying nurses to stay in rural hospitals as a result of the pandemic will likely have staying power, he said. Some of that will come from Medicare reimbursement.

“You asked what I plan to do here in Iowa, but the decisions we make affect all 50 states, not just here in Iowa,” Grassley told the person who asked that question.

Grassley said he read in a newspaper that the Iowa legislature had passed action designed to level the playing field in a healthcare climate that is heavily employing visiting nurses. It is designed to make sure traveling nurses aren’t getting paid more than nurses who work in the same facility all the time.

The senator agreed that more work needs to be done in the areas of emergency medical services (EMS). Thse areas specifically include paying better for the service, training the volunteers and professionals and making EMS an essential service.

Grassley’s staffers suggested local healthcare leaders be in touch with policy advisors with his administration so that more can hopefully be done on EMS in the future.

After the open forum portion of the meeting, Grassley sat down with the media and gave high praise to the medical professionals we have in places such as Adair County.

“Thinking over the last two years, and particularly the year of 2020 and going into 2021, just seeing the healthcare professions with all the garb they had to put on to protect themselves, some were event committing suicide from working long hours,” Grassley said. “There’s only one word that expresses it all: they’re humanitarians.”