Rural Hospital Provider Assistance Program - Summit Surgical, LLC is a 10-bed rural hospital in Hutchinson, Kansas, operating three surgical suites and providing inpatient acute care, orthopedic and spine surgical services, diagnostic imaging, physical and occupational therapy, pain and spine clinic services, and anesthesia services. This project addresses the hospital's most severe and longest-standing workforce shortage: physical therapy. Physical therapy is integral to the hospital's surgical program. The hospital's therapists provide inpatient care to every orthopedic and spine surgical patient admitted to the facility. Post-surgical mobilization and rehabilitation are required before discharge, and this demand is non-deferrable: it must be covered each day the hospital has surgical inpatients. The same therapists deliver outpatient rehabilitation to the surrounding rural population. The population served extends well beyond the immediate community. The hospital's orthopedic service area includes Reno, Rice, Stafford, McPherson, Pratt, and Kingman counties and surrounding rural communities, and spine surgical patients are referred from across the State of Kansas. Patients traveling from distant counties typically return home for outpatient therapy, but every one of them receives inpatient therapy at this hospital. The therapy workforce therefore supports the full statewide surgical referral population as well as local outpatients, for whom the hospital is the nearest source of rehabilitation services. The rehabilitation workforce has no redundancy. Current staffing is 3.8 physical therapist FTEs, and the hospital is presently recruiting two additional physical therapists — approximately one-third of the department's required capacity. The rural labor market makes these positions extraordinarily difficult to fill. The hospital's average time to fill a physical therapist position is 348 days, nearly a full year of vacancy per opening. To preserve patient access during these extended vacancies, the hospital supplements coverage with contract agency therapists. Agency staffing keeps both inpatient and outpatient services available, but at a substantial cost premium over permanent employees, and it diverts resources that would otherwise strengthen the hospital's own workforce. Proposed activities. The hospital will use this funding for the maintenance of health care providers through the following activities: 1. Recruitment incentive payments. The hospital provides a $10,000 sign-on incentive for physical therapists. Grant funds will support these incentives for the positions currently in recruitment. 2. Recruitment expenses for physical therapist positions, including professional advertising and placement, licensure, and relocation costs necessary to attract qualified therapists to a rural setting. 3. Salary and benefit support for physical therapists during the period of performance. These positions deliver direct patient care. 4. Contract therapy coverage to maintain uninterrupted inpatient and outpatient rehabilitation services while permanent recruitment continues, ensuring no lapse in patient access during the extended hiring timeline. Physical therapy restores function and mobility for post-surgical and chronically limited patients, supporting long-term independence and slowing the progression of chronic musculoskeletal conditions in the rural population served. Sustaining this workforce is preventive, community-based care that reduces downstream chronic disease burden. All funds, including administrative funds, will be used at the individual hospital level. Administrative expenses will not exceed 10 percent of the award. The measurable outcome of this project is the maintenance of the hospital's physical therapy workforce at levels sufficient to sustain inpatient rehabilitation for the hospital's surgical program and outpatient rehabilitation for the surrounding rural communities — with reduced reliance on contract labor.
