Arkansas’s Medicaid program is getting noticed.
Earlier this summer, the state launched a new gainsharing initiative aimed at improving the efficiencies of medicine by keeping down costs for five high-volume episodes of care while still meeting quality standards.
The episodes of care are perinatal care, attention deficit/hyperactivity disorder, upper respiratory infection, hip and knee replacement, and heart failure.
If providers in the program succeed in saving money, they will pocket a percentage of those funds. If they don’t, they’ll need to return some of the excess fees.
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Staking its territory, the Natural State may become a model for Medicaid reform.
As the New York Times blogger Ezekiel J. Emanuel points out, while such strategies have been tested on a small scale, “this change will now be made in every corner of the state, for every hospital, and physicians in almost every specialty: surgeons, anesthesiologists, obstetricians, pediatricians, primary care physicians. For policy makers and the public, the Arkansas experiment is fascinating.
“If Arkansas succeeds — even partly — it will show the way for the rest of the country,” he wrote.