Rural Behavioral Health

According to a 2022 policy brief from the National Rural Health Association, rural areas can experience a severe lack of access to and availability of the full range of behavioral health care services, challenges with mental health workforce recruitment and retention, and technology barriers impacting telehealth visits. These challenges, combined with additional social challenges like stigma, a potential lack of anonymity when seeking care, geographic isolation from services, and cost, can deter patients and families in rural communities from getting the care they need.

Hospitals are the cornerstones of their communities, serving as principal access points to care for the nearly 60 million people or 20 percent of Americans who live in rural areas and may need behavioral health services. The AHA is committed supporting its members as they strive to provide high quality, accessible behavioral health services in America’s rural communities through the following advocacy priorities:

Telehealth. The pandemic demonstrated telehealth services are a crucial access point for many patients. AHA supports legislation to make permanent coverage of certain telehealth services made possible during the pandemic, including lifting geographic and originating site restrictions, allowing Rural Health Clinics and Federally Qualified Health Centers to serve as distant sites, expanding practitioners who can provide telehealth, and allowing hospital outpatient billing for virtual services, among others (S. 2016 / H.R. 4189).

Graduate Medical Education. We urge Congress to pass additional legislation to increase the number of Medicare-funded residency slots, which would expand training opportunities in rural settings and help address health professional shortages (S. 1302 / H.R. 2389)

Loan Repayment Programs. We urge Congress to pass legislation to provide incentives for clinicians to practice in rural HPSAs. We support expanding the National Health Service Corps and the National Nurse Corps, which incentivize health care graduates to provide health care services in underserved areas (S. 862 / S. 940 / H.R. 1711).

A number of behavioral health policies that authorize, expand, and better integrate behavioral health programs in rural communities.

For more information, visit AHA’s 2024 Rural Advocacy Agenda.

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