Rural Access to Infusion Services: A Geographic Analysis of Service Availability

Infusion therapies play an increasingly important role in the treatment of cancer, chronic conditions, and other conditions, such as Alzheimer's disease and related dementias. However, infusion services depend on specific outpatient clinical infrastructure and capacity. Rural access to infusion services remains poorly characterized, and conventional workforce measures may not capture where these services are available or delivered, potentially obscuring geographic gaps in service availability and patient travel burden. This project will address following questions:

1. Where do rural and urban Medicare beneficiaries receive infusion services, and what proportion receive care in rural versus urban locations relative to their residence and across infusion settings?
2. What distances and travel times do rural Medicare beneficiaries experience when traveling to receive infusion services, and how does travel burden vary by infusion type and rurality?