rural health clinic (RHC)

Public or private outpatient health care facility located where there is a shortage of health services and staffed by a nurse practitioner, physician assistant, or certified nurse midwife under the direction of a physician. It gives routine diagnostic services, laboratory services, drugs, and biologicals. It has access to other diagnostic services from facilities that meet federal guidelines and must be licensed by the state. Also called rural health center (RHC) .

Rural Health Clinics Act (RHCA)

Legislation enacted by Congress in 1977 and implemented in 1978 to increase access to primary health care services for Medicare and Medicaid beneficiaries living in rural areas. The RHCA also created a cost-based payment mechanism to ensure the financial viability of rural health clinics and encouraged the use of midlevel practitioners by providing payment for their services, even in the absence of a full-time physician.

rural primary care hospital (RPCH)

Limited-service rural hospitals that provide outpatient and short-term inpatient hospital care on an urgent or emergency basis, then release patients or transfer them to an Essential Access Community Hospital (EACH) or other full-service hospital. To be designated as RPCHs, hospitals have to meet certain criteria including requirements that they not have more than six inpatient beds for acute (hospital-level) care and maintain an average inpatient length of stay of no more than 72 hours.

Rural Sector, IRDA Obligations of Insurance to Rural Social Sectors, Regulations, 2002

“Rural Sector” shall mean any place or areas classified as rural while conducting the latest decennial population census. “Social Sector” includes unorganized sector, informal sector, economically vulnerable or backward classes and other categories both in rural and urban areas. “Obligations”: (A) “Rural Sector”: Every general insurer shall ensure (a) two per cent in the first financial year, (b) three per cent in the second financial year (c) five per cent thereafter of total gross premium income written direct in that area. (B) “Social Sector”: (a) 5 thousand lives in the first financial year (b) seven thousand five hundred lives in the second financial year (c) ten thousand lives in the third financial year (d) fifteen thousand lives in the fourth financial year (E) twenty thousand lives in the fifth financial year. Obligations after the sixth financial year: Rural Sector, General Insurer: 5 per cent in the seventh financial year, 6 per cent in the eighth financial year, 7 per cent in the ninth and tenth financial year of the total gross premium income written direct in that year. Obligations after the sixth financial year: Social Sector, General Insurer: 25,000 lives in the 7th , 35,000 lives in the 8th , 45,000 lives in the ninth and 55,000 lives in the tenth financial year. The obligations towards Rural and Social shall be continued for financial years from 11th financial year onwards on lines as per 10th year.