MCG Health

Our Mission in Rural Healthcare

MCG Health plays a transformative role in supporting rural healthcare facilities — especially Critical Access Hospitals — by equipping them with evidence-based clinical guidelines and decision-support tools that elevate patient care, streamline operations, and manage costs more effectively.

By helping rural hospitals navigate unique challenges like limited resources and financial constraints, MCG enables them to maintain consistent, high-quality care for the communities that rely on them most. Through collaboration and innovation, we’re working toward a stronger, more sustainable future for rural healthcare.

The Rural Challenges We Solve

MCG helps rural hospitals protect revenue, reduce denials, and improve care management. Our solutions address key pain points like medical necessity documentation, social determinants of health, opioid and substance use disorder management, and optimizing hospital length of stay — all within the specific operational realities of rural facilities.

How We Support Rural Healthcare Providers

MCG offers clinical decision-support technology that helps rural hospitals justify the medical necessity of services, reduce unnecessary denials, and streamline level-of-care determinations. We also offer consulting services to optimize workflows, prepare for audits, and strengthen payer-provider alignment.

Our evidence-based tools integrate with rural EHR systems to create a consistent, efficient workflow that fits the way your teams already work. From addressing care needs influenced by transportation access and food insecurity, to supporting substance use disorder management, MCG provides tailored guidance backed by data and clinical rigor.

We also offer rural-specific benchmarking, so your facility can measure performance against peer organizations with similar patient populations—not large urban hospitals with vastly different challenges.

Proven Rural Impact

Aspirus Medford Hospital, a 25-bed nonprofit Critical Access Hospital in Wisconsin, reported zero full denials from payers over five years after using MCG to support level-of-care determinations and justify medical necessity.

Wickenburg Community Hospital in Arizona achieved a 64% reduction in denials within one year of implementation, including zero denials for their inpatient acute unit.

Rural Success Story

Effingham Health System in Springfield, Georgia, partnered with MCG to reduce peer-to-peer calls and eliminate full payor denials within just six months of implementation. This partnership resulted in meaningful financial savings for both the hospital and its community.
Read the case study

What Our Clients Say

“Aspirus Medford Hospital, a 25-bed nonprofit Critical Access Hospital in Medford, Wisconsin, reported that they had no full denials from payers over five years by using MCG to justify medical necessity and improve level-of-care determinations. They also began using MCG’s evidence-based care guidelines during patient-centered rounding to close gaps in care and tailor treatment to the patient’s specific clinical responses.”

Why MCG is Different for Rural Hospitals

MCG’s solutions are uniquely suited to the needs of rural providers. Tools like discharge criteria and recovery milestones in MCG Inpatient & Surgical Care support safe, timely discharges — including compliance with the CAH 96-hour rule.

More than half the rural hospitals in the HomeTown Health directory rely on MCG to improve population health, reduce risk, and strengthen revenue — because our solutions are built with the realities of rural healthcare in mind.

Contact Us

Snapper Ploen
Phone: (206) 389-5385
Email: snapper.ploen@mcg.com