Unique Health-Related Problems

For the medical community, barriers to quality rural healthcare include:

• inadequate financing
• difficulties recruiting and retaining health personnel
• migration of patients from rural providers to urban providers
• limited appropriated funds from the state and other entities—less “bang for the buck”
• long distances to metropolitan areas
• clusters of migrant workers
• high numbers of under-insured and un-insured
• entrenched community cultures—how residents “do” things

Rural Health Partnership addresses these and other core problems that undermine the capabilities of rural clinics and hospitals to continue to provide timely and effective care for rural Floridians—especially primary care for Medicaid and under-insured populations.