Management

Rural Healthcare Navigates Uncertainty Amid Budgetary Concerns

A major lesson learned in 2025 is that there is a lot of funding ambiguity for rural healthcare organizations. They’re not alone in their worries.

Curtiss Strietelmeier

Curtiss Strietelmeier is a Public Sector Funding Strategist for CDW.

More than 57 million Americans living in rural communities rely on a hospital for health, economic and social factors, according to the American Hospital Association.

Yet many rural providers have had to operate in a deficit, and some have even had to cut vital services, such as labor and delivery, just to keep their doors open.

“Rural hospitals provide essential care for nearly one-fifth of Americans, and ensuring they remain open and financially viable is critical to community health,” American Medical Association Board of Trustees member Dr. Ilse Levin said in an article last month by the organization.

Heading into the new year, rural healthcare leaders are facing even more precarity after a significant cut to Medicaid spending and questions around the allocation of $50 billion in the rural health transformation fund by the states. With the expiration of subsidies tied to the Affordable Care Act, healthcare costs are expected to increase for millions of Americans.

Most rural healthcare organizations have been asking what the reimbursement process will look like going forward. Leaders are trying to adjust their budgets to prepare for the future, but there are a lot of unknowns to consider.

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Finding Partnerships Throughout the Industry

For organizations already working with trusted technology partners, it’s important to keep conversations open and honest. Help partners understand what projects are taking shape and what goals are for the next few years so they can help with planning. Broadening that understanding for partners can help them share the right resources as well. The more they know, the better the opportunity they have to help rural health leaders out in the long run.

There are still funding options available through different avenues, such as the Rural Health Care Program, which targets IT needs around broadband services and telecommunications, and grants to sustain telehealth services or to address population health needs, such as certain chronic disease management. There may be not-so-obvious ways that organizations can be considered for funding, such as meeting certain requirements as a nonprofit entity to apply for the Nonprofit Security Grant Program, for example.

Vendors have also been stepping up to offer targeted support for rural health systems. Microsoft has its Cybersecurity Program for Rural Hospitals, with more than 550 participating rural hospitals as of March 2025, and Google has its own rural healthcare cybersecurity initiative. Major electronic health record system vendors such as Epic and MEDITECH can connect smaller health systems to resources they may not otherwise have the budget or staff members to implement.

While there is a lot of uncertainty for rural providers, they should know that they are not alone in their concerns.

This article is part of HealthTech’s MonITor blog series.