Like a destructive earthquake, recent news from The Chartis Center for Rural, documenting the accelerated rate of closures among rural hospitals, is sending shock waves through rural communities.

As with the Richter scale, the closure of one rural hospital is likely to have an exponential impact on all rural health. And the stark reality is that, as of January 2020, a total of 120 rural health facilities have closed their doors.

Leslie Marsh, the chief executive of Lexington Regional Health Center in Lincoln, Neb., returns to Monitor Mondays and reports on precipitous peril for rural hospitals, which is now rising to a national disaster.

Other segments featured on the podcast are:

• RAC Report: Senior healthcare analyst Frank Cohen returns to the broadcast to report on why Recovery Audit Contractors (RACs) can’t be considered unbiased in a court of law.
  
  
• Audit Report:  Sean M. Weiss, partner and chief compliance officer for DoctorsManagement, reports Artificial Intelligence (AI) and its impact on compliance and auditing.
  
  
• Risky Business: Healthcare attorney David Glaser, a shareholder in the law offices of Fredrickson & Bryon, will join the broadcast with his trademark segment Risky Business.
  
  
• Monday Rounds: Ronald Hirsch, MD, vice president of R1 RCM, makes his Monday Rounds with another installment of his popular segment.