The Legislature finds and declares the following:
In rural areas, access to health care is limited and the quality of health care is adversely affected by inadequate reimbursement and collection rates and difficulty in recruiting and retaining skilled health professionals.
There is limited, if any, overlap in the geographic service areas of Mississippi rural hospitals.
Rural hospitals’ financial stability is threatened by patient migration to general acute care and specialty hospitals in urban areas.
The availability of quality health care in rural areas is essential to the economic and social viability of rural communities.
Cooperative agreements among rural hospitals would improve the availability and quality of health care for Mississippians in rural areas and enhance the likelihood that rural hospitals can remain open.