Rural Hospital Closure Map: Which Counties Near Pulaski AR Lost Hospitals — What Seniors with Hypertension in Little Rock Must Know Right Now

What does the rural hospital closure map actually show for counties around Pulaski AR?

Let's be plain about something first: Pulaski County itself is not a rural hospital desert. Little Rock is the state capital. You've got nine hospitals operating right now in that county — from UAMS on West Markham to Arkansas Heart Hospital on South Shackleford. If you live in Little Rock or North Little Rock, you're better off than most of rural Arkansas.

But here's the thing that doesn't show up in a Google search: the counties that ring Pulaski are a different story entirely.

According to the Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research at UNC — the gold standard for tracking rural hospital closures — 136 rural hospitals have closed across the United States since 2010. Arkansas has not been spared. Perry County, directly to the northwest of Pulaski on Arkansas Highway 10, lost its only inpatient hospital. Perry County residents in Perryville are now looking at a minimum 45-minute drive to Little Rock for anything beyond urgent care. Conway County to the north has faced similar facility strain. Saline County to the southwest has seen rural critical access pressures mount.

Why does this matter to you if you live in Little Rock? Two reasons:

1. Your family members — a sibling in Perryville, a parent in Morrilton — may be depending on your Pulaski County hospital network when they have an emergency, and your plan's network may or may not cover them.
2. The closure map is moving toward Pulaski, not away from it. Baptist Health Medical Center North Little Rock currently holds a 1-star CMS overall quality rating. That's not a stable institution. (Source: CMS Hospital Compare, data.cms.gov)

How bad is hypertension in Pulaski County — and what does it mean for your Medicare coverage?

CDC PLACES 2023 data for Pulaski County (population 400,009) tells us that 76.4% of adults with high blood pressure are currently taking medication to control it (confidence interval: 73.8%–78.8%). That's the official "good news" figure. But flip it around: nearly one in four adults with diagnosed hypertension in this county is not getting adequate pharmaceutical control.

Now layer on these numbers from the same CDC dataset:

Source: CDC PLACES Local Data for Better Health, Pulaski County AR, 2023 release — https://places.cdc.gov

A 3.9% stroke rate in a county of 400,009 people means roughly 15,600 adults are living with stroke history right now. Hypertension is the single biggest modifiable risk factor for stroke. When a hospital closes — or when a Medicare Advantage plan quietly drops a hospital from its network — stroke patients in that service area lose the fastest path to time-sensitive clot-busting treatment (tPA), which must be administered within hours.

The loneliness and social support numbers hit differently when you understand rural healthcare. 35.5% of Pulaski County adults report loneliness. A person who is isolated is less likely to call 911 at the first sign of a hypertensive crisis. They wait. They drive themselves. And if the nearest certified stroke center is now 45 minutes away instead of 15, that wait can become permanent.

What are the actual hospitals in Pulaski County — and what are their CMS quality ratings?

Here is the complete picture of acute care hospitals currently operating in Pulaski County, AR, with their CMS overall quality ratings as of the most recent Hospital Compare data (data.cms.gov). Every Medicare beneficiary in this county needs to know this table cold — because your Medicare Advantage plan may steer you to one hospital over another, and the difference in quality ratings is stark.

Source: CMS Hospital Compare, April 2026 — data.cms.gov/provider-data/topics/hospitals

A few things jump out of that table that I want to address directly.

Arkansas Heart Hospital earned 4 stars from CMS. For a senior managing hypertension, that is the most relevant specialist facility in this county — and it's on South Shackleford Road. Call (501) 219-7000 and confirm your Medicare plan covers services there before you need it.

UAMS carries a 2-star rating. This surprises a lot of people because UAMS is the flagship academic medical center for the state of Arkansas. Star ratings measure things like readmission rates, patient experience scores, and mortality rates — not research prestige. As an academic center, UAMS sees the sickest patients in Arkansas, which can depress some metrics. Understand what you're getting before you arrive in crisis.

Baptist Health Medical Center North Little Rock carries a 1-star rating. I'm not here to pile on a hospital that serves working-class North Little Rock. But if you have hypertension and your Medicare Advantage plan routes you there by default, you deserve to know that CMS data shows significant quality gaps. Verify your plan's network and ask your plan explicitly which hospital they'd send you to in a hypertensive emergency.

What is happening with Medicare Advantage plans in Pulaski County — and how many plans actually exist?

Pulaski County, AR, as the most populous county in the state, has one of the broadest Medicare Advantage markets in Arkansas. CMS Medicare Plan Finder (medicare.gov/plan-compare) lists available plans for each county by ZIP code. I strongly encourage every beneficiary to run their own ZIP code search — the plan landscape changes each year, and what was available at open enrollment may not match what you have today.

What I can tell you from tracking the Arkansas Medicare Advantage market:

• Multiple carriers operate in Pulaski County, including national players and regional Arkansas-specific plans.
• Network adequacy — whether your plan actually covers Arkansas Heart Hospital, UAMS, or CHI-St Vincent Infirmary — varies significantly by carrier and plan tier.
• Special Needs Plans (SNPs), specifically Chronic Condition SNPs (C-SNPs) for cardiovascular disease, may be available in Pulaski County. These plans are specifically designed for people with conditions like hypertension and heart disease. They often offer enhanced drug coverage and care coordination that standard Medicare Advantage plans don't.
• For seniors in surrounding counties (Perry, Conway, Yell, Saline), the plan landscape is significantly thinner — and some counties may have zero Medicare Advantage options, pushing beneficiaries to Original Medicare with a standalone Part D plan.

What about telehealth — does it actually help if surrounding counties lose hospitals?

Let me be direct: telehealth is not a substitute for an emergency room when you're having a stroke or a hypertensive crisis. I've heard that pitch before and I call it out every time.

But for the day-to-day management of hypertension — medication adjustments, blood pressure check-ins, quarterly cardiology consultations — telehealth is a genuine lifeline for seniors in Perry County, Conway County, or anywhere else that's lost its hospital. And for Pulaski County seniors who have an independent living disability (9.2% of county adults, per CDC PLACES 2023) or who are dealing with loneliness that keeps them from making the drive to a clinic, telehealth can be the difference between controlled blood pressure and a preventable hospitalization.

Medicare Part B covers telehealth visits for blood pressure management. Many Medicare Advantage plans in Pulaski County extend that coverage further — remote patient monitoring for blood pressure cuffs, 24/7 nurse lines, virtual urgent care. But you have to ask. It will not be on your plan's summary of benefits in plain English.

UAMS, despite its 2-star rating, has a robust telehealth program — UAMS Health — that reaches rural Arkansans across the state. Their number is (501) 686-5000. If you're in a surrounding county and struggling to see a cardiologist, UAMS telehealth can connect you with a specialist without driving to Little Rock.

What specific steps should a Pulaski County senior with hypertension take right now?

Is the hospital closure crisis going to get worse in Arkansas?

Yes. I won't sugarcoat it.

The Chartis Center for Rural Health, which tracks hospital financial vulnerability, has flagged multiple Arkansas rural hospitals as at risk of closure in the next two to three years. Proposed cuts to Critical Access Hospital reimbursements under Medicare's cost-based payment model — which I've covered in depth for Knox County, Kentucky and Kanawha County, West Virginia — would hit Arkansas facilities hard.

The cholesterol screening rate in Pulaski County is 85.4% — meaning preventive care infrastructure is present and working here. That's worth protecting. But when the hospital that delivers preventive follow-up care closes or degrades in quality, those screening numbers stop translating into better outcomes.

The 28% of Pulaski County adults who lack social and emotional support — that number matters here too. Those are the seniors who won't call their adult child when their blood pressure spikes at 11 p.m. They'll wait until morning. If the morning means a 45-minute drive to a 1-star hospital because the nearest 4-star facility dropped their plan, that's not a policy problem. That's a person's life on the line.

I grew up in a hollow where the hospital was 45 minutes away — and then it closed. I know what that map looks like on the ground. Pulaski County has resources right now that counties to its north and west are losing. The time to understand your coverage, confirm your network, and build your care plan is before the crisis — not during it.

Data sources: CDC PLACES Local Data for Better Health, Pulaski County AR, 2023 release (places.cdc.gov); CMS Hospital Compare, April 2026 (data.cms.gov/provider-data/topics/hospitals); Cecil G. Sheps Center for Health Services Research, Rural Hospital Closures Tracker (shepscenter.unc.edu); HRSA Area Health Resources Files, 2024 (data.hrsa.gov); Chartis Center for Rural Health, 2025 Rural Hospital Vulnerability Index.