Providing acute inpatient care, short-stay hospitals are the backbone of the hospital infrastructure that serves over 62 million Americans having Medicare Part A insurance coverage.  As of the calendar year 2020, more than 6,200 hospitals of all kinds participated in the Medicare program with over 56% of those participating hospitals being short-stay hospitals.  More importantly, those participating short-stay hospitals accounted for almost 83.6% of the total hospital beds serving the inpatient hospital care needs of Medicare Part A enrollees.

As of the calendar year 2020, there were 251 short-stay hospitals in the seven-state Great Plains regions, with just over 57,300 beds, participating in the Medicare program.  While the region was home to about 6.6% of the nation's Medicare Part A enrollment, it held 7.4% of the Medicare program's short-stay hospital beds.  Here is a state-level look at Medicare short-stay hospital beds in the Great Plains region:

Medicare Short Stay Hospital Beds in the Great Plains Region

	# Part A Enrollees		# Hospitals	# Beds
IA	637,145		33	8,550
KS	545,607		49	7,851
MN	1,045,280		48	13,297
MO	1,246,928		68	18,739
NE	353,434		26	4,306
ND	133,840		8	2,247
SD	180,149		19	2,338
Region	4,142,384		251	57,328
National*	62,498,571		3,481	774,873
% of National	6.6%		7.2%	7.4%

* National totals include U.S. territories

Source:  CMS Program Statistics, Table: MDCR PROVIDERS 4. Medicare Providers:  Number of Medicare Certified Hospitals and Skilled Nursing Facilities, and Number of Beds, by State, Territories, Possessions, and Other, the Calendar Year 2020