Billions are getting cut from health care. For some rural hospitals, growing is part of the solution

Caption

Clinch Memorial Hospital

Credit: Clinch Memorial Hospital

The federal government is expected to make billions of dollars in cuts to health care programs, particularly to Medicaid, with some changes to spending already implemented or coming in January.  

That includes a reduction of around $8 billion set aside for hospitals with a disproportionate number of underinsured patients that went into effect on Oct. 1, as well as the end of a financial incentive for states to expand their Medicaid programs.  

Federal lawmakers on both sides of the aisle have recognized the hit these cuts will have on rural hospitals, and are proposing a solution in the Rural Health Transformation Program, which promises to offer $10 million to approved states each fiscal year for five years to help keep hospitals afloat.  

But there are concerns about how far that money can really go. Georgia recently submitted its plan for approval, outlining initiatives such as increased investments in telehealth and the health care workforce.  

For Monica Morris, a recruiter for the Southwell health care system based in South Georgia’s Tift, Cook and Turner counties, the cuts to health care spending aren’t an immediate concern.  

“That's just not something we can really worry about as far as cutting back on recruitment, because we're forging ahead,” Morris said. “And the more doctors we have, the more productive we're going to be to kind of circumvent that issue of the cutback.” 

Morris, along with other recruiters from the state’s rural hospitals, had a list of positions to fill from primary care doctors to specialists at a recent recruitment fair at Mercer University in Macon.  

“We could use probably three more family medicine doctors in Tifton,” she said. “We are not searching for patients. The volume is there.” 

Meeting that volume is one way to secure longevity. That’s why hospitals and clinics sprinkled across Georgia’s 120 counties are eager to invest in  people like Pratik Patel, a medical student at Mercer University in Macon.   

“I grew up in a small town,” Patel said. “We used to have a hospital, and then it closed down. And after that point, you can tell the shift and the health care of the community itself go down the drain.”  

Patel’s scholarship requires him to work in a medically underserved area after residency.  

That’s good news for people like Allison Kline from Clinch Memorial Hospital in South Georgia. Kline was looking for a specific candidate at the recruitment fair on Nov. 13, 2025. 

“We don't have a pediatrician within around 40 to 45 miles any way you go,” she said. “Right now, it's a deep need for us.”  

Kline said hospitals like Clinch need to invest in essential services if they’re going to manage federal cuts to health care.  

Clinch Memorial Hospital is part of the way there; in 2023, it partnered with the Mercer University School of Medicine and Children’s Healthcare of Atlanta to create a “Kid Ready” emergency room as part of a funding initiative that seeks to improve the capabilities of small hospitals to manage pediatric emergencies.  

• RELATED: Rural Georgia hospital plans to close its labor and delivery unit, in part due to Medicaid cuts 

Emily Rooks is a recruiter from Tanner Health System in Northwest Georgia. She said they get in applications daily across their five hospitals, but there needs to be a focus on retention.  

“COVID completely changed health care, and I don't think it'll ever go back to pre-COVID times,” Rooks said. “[It] really opened the eyes to not only providers, but also health care systems, as to how detrimental the shortage of providers can be.”  

Starting next year, Tanner Health will begin accepting medical students from Mercer University for clerkships and rotations at its hospital in Carrollton. Rooks hopes the partnership can strengthen the applicant pool.  

“Some of these searches can take years, so you know, just doing our due diligence and making sure no stone is unturned when we're looking for the best providers,” she said.  

An October report from the Center for Healthcare Quality and Payment Reform lists 10 rural hospitals in Georgia at an immediate risk of closing citing a “severity” of financial problems, such as a discrepancy between insurance payments and the actual cost of services hospitals provide.  

Other estimates of at-risk hospitals consider which ones are already operating at a loss, and take into account just how much rural hospitals and the patients they serve rely on Medicaid coverage.