Consumer Insights Point to Digital Solutions and Workflow Modernization as Key Enablers of Rural Access and Sustainability
Rockville, Maryland – Zyter|TruCare, a leader in healthcare workflow modernization and population health technology, today announced results from a national consumer survey on healthcare in rural communities, revealing clear priorities that align with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) Rural Health Transformation (RHT) Program. Rural residents point to access, provider capacity and the burden of distance as key challenges, issues now targeted by new federal investments to reimagine rural care delivery.
Key findings from rural respondents include:
- 54% cite long wait times as a top challenge to healthcare quality.
- 44% say it takes longer to get an appointment today than it did two to three years ago.
- 53% believe their community does not have enough healthcare providers.
- 49% report traveling 10 to 25 miles for routine care.
- 55% still prefer in-person visits over telehealth, underscoring the need to balance virtual care with trusted, local access points.
“These findings give rural health leaders a roadmap for where to focus as CMS’ Rural Health Transformation Program unlocks historic new funding and flexibility,” said Sundar Subramanian, CEO of Zyter|TruCare. “By combining digital tools, virtual care platforms and smarter workflows, rural communities can reduce wait times, support overextended care teams and bring care closer to home—without sacrificing the relationships patients value.”
Rural residents say their communities need more primary care, urgent care, and mental health services, pointing directly to priority areas within the Rural Health Transformation Program’s focus on workforce, access, and innovative care models. Zyter|TruCare’s solutions, including Zyter Rural Health Orchestrator™, are designed to help states, health plans, and providers implement these models by optimizing workforce capacity, enabling interoperability across care settings, and coordinating in-person and virtual care, including telehealth and remote patient monitoring. Recent work published by Zyter|TruCare in its Making Rural Care Work white paper examines these same challenges through a technology and care coordination lens.
Survey Methodology
The survey meets rigorous quality standards and employs a non-probability-based sample using quotas during collection and a weighting scheme proven to provide nationally representative results.
To learn more about these findings, read Zyter|TruCare’s Making Rural Care Work white paper: https://www.zyter.com/learning/making-rural-care-work/
To explore how Zyter|TruCare can support rural providers and state Rural Health Transformation initiatives, visit https://www.zyter.com/contact/.
About Zyter|TruCare
Zyter|TruCare provides the digital core and orchestrated AI layer that modernize population health and care management workflows at national scale. Its TruCare® platform supports tens of millions of covered lives across dozens of health plans, unifying utilization management, care management and related clinical operations on a single digital core. Its agentic AI platform, Zyter Symphony™, is a next-generation, orchestrated Agents-as-a-Service platform that rewires legacy workflows by coordinating modular AI agents, process logic and human collaboration to automate full workflows, reduce process debt and unlock measurable outcomes across clinical and administrative domains.
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Media Contacts:
Paige Romine | PAN
Keilani Finley | Zyter|TruCare
