Rural health clinic

A Rural Health Clinic (RHC) is a clinic located in a rural, medically under-served area in the United States that has a separate reimbursement structure from the standard medical office under the Medicare and Medicaid programs. RHCs were established by the Rural Health Clinics Act (P.L. 95-210), (Section 1905 of the Social Security Act). The program was established to address an inadequate supply of physicians serving Medicare beneficiaries and Medicaid recipients in rural areas and to increase the utilization of non-physician practitioners. As of 2003, there were approximately 3,600 RHCs in the U.S.