06/10/2026
🏥 An Important Issue Affecting Rural Healthcare — Please Read & Share
Right now, two members of our team are in Washington D.C. at a congressional briefing, advocating for changes that could directly impact the care your loved ones receive. I want to shine a light on one issue that doesn’t get nearly enough attention.
Many of us in rural communities rely on Physician Assistants (PAs) and Nurse Practitioners (NPs) as our primary healthcare providers — and for good reason. These providers are skilled, dedicated, and often the backbone of rural medicine. In many areas, they ARE the healthcare.
But here’s something most people don’t know: current CMS (Medicare) regulations require that once your loved one is admitted to a skilled nursing or long-term care facility, the supervising physician must see them every other visit — even if a PA or NP has been their primary provider for years.
That means your mom or dad, who has trusted the same PA or NP for 20 years — someone who knows their history, their personality, their fears — may suddenly have a physician they’ve never met showing up every other visit, simply because of a regulatory requirement.
Meanwhile, our physicians are already stretched incredibly thin. They are managing full patient loads, overseeing multiple providers, handling emergencies, and navigating mountains of administrative work. Adding mandatory visit requirements to their plate doesn’t improve care — it strains a system that is already running on fumes, especially in rural areas where physician shortages are a very real crisis.
PAs and NPs are highly trained, licensed professionals. They are MORE than capable of managing the ongoing care of their long-term patients. Continuity of care matters — research consistently shows that patients do better when they have a consistent, trusted provider who knows them well.
We are asking Congress to update these outdated regulations and allow PAs and NPs to provide continuous, uninterrupted care to their patients in skilled facilities — just as they do everywhere else.
If this matters to you, please share this post. Talk to your representatives. And know that people right here from our community are in Washington fighting for this today. đź’™
