Medicare

Pursuant to a congressional request, GAO provided data on the Medicare Program's share of rural and urban hospitals' total inpatient days, discharges, and revenues for 1985.

GAO found that Medicare: (1) represented an average 31.5 percent of revenues, 32.3 percent of discharges, and 42 percent of inpatient days for all hospitals; (2) represented 36.3 percent of revenues, 42.3 percent of discharges, and 50.7 percent of inpatient days for rural hospitals with less than 50 beds; (3) in general, represented larger percentages of revenues, discharges, and inpatient days for rural hospitals than for urban hospitals; and (4) contributed slightly more to urban than rural hospitals in Arizona because of the large number of retired persons living in its metropolitan areas.