HHS Secretary Tommy G. Thompson recently appointed four new members to serve on the National Advisory Committee on Rural Health and Human Services and released the committee’s yearly report.
 
The new committee members are:
 

• Thomas C. Ricketts, Ph.D., professor of health policy and administration and social medicine, University of North Carolina School of Public Health and UNC School of Medicine, Chapel Hill;
  
  
• Patti J. Patterson, M.D., M.P.H., vice president for rural and community health and associate professor of pediatrics, Texas Tech University Health Sciences Center, Lubbock;
  
  
• Julie Hayes, M.S., R.D., deputy director of minority health, Alabama Department of Public Health, Montgomery;
  
  
• Michael Meit, M.P.H., executive director, University of Pittsburgh Center for Rural Health Practice, Bradford, Pa.

The committee’s 2004 annual report includes recommendations to the Secretary and examples of model rural programs.  The report’s recommendations urge the Secretary to:
 

• support efforts to cover mental health services equally with primary care services under Medicaid and Medicare;
  
  
• authorize an oral health bonus within Medicaid to encourage greater participation by dentists in rural areas and increase funding for HHS programs that train and place dentists; and
  
  
• support transportation projects to help the rural elderly access health care.

The report cites the Minnie Hamilton Health Center, a critical access hospital in Grantsville, W.Va., that offers mental, oral and other health services, and Community Health Development, a federally qualified health center in Uvalde, Texas, that assesses patients for oral health needs, as models of rural health care. 
 
The 21-member committee was created in 1987 and meets three times a year.  The current report is available on the Web site of the Office of Rural Health Policy, which provides staff support through HHS’ Health Resources and Services Administration.