Primary care innovators receive awards totaling $2.6 million from Arkansas Blue Cross

Aug 23, 2023

More than 100 primary care clinics throughout Arkansas participating in two value-based programs that encourage innovation in patient care have earned annual financial awards from Arkansas Blue Cross and Blue Shield.

The three programs are:

• Primary Care First (PCF) – an initiative of the federal Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation and the latest iteration of the agency’s Comprehensive Primary Care Plus (CPC+) program
• Patient-Centered Medical Homes (PCMH) – a team-based healthcare delivery model that seeks to provide comprehensive and continuous medical care to patients with a goal to obtain optimal health outcomes

The PCF and PCMH programs provide financial resources to encourage primary care clinics to test ideas that advance patient care, improve outcomes and reduce low-value care.

For meeting performance goals, 101 participating PCMH and PCF clinics, representing 580 healthcare providers (caring for 88,131 attributed Arkansas Blue Cross members) will share in more than $2.6 million being awarded by Arkansas Blue Cross. Each clinic met or exceeded its 2022 PCMH and PCF clinical quality and utilization measure targets by focusing on:

• Reducing avoidable hospital admissions and nonemergent emergency department visits
• Quality of care

“Primary care is vital,” said Alicia Berkemeyer, executive vice president and chief health management officer for Arkansas Blue Cross. “Innovation is a crucial element of promoting good health and preventing or limiting the impact of disease. These providers have employed creative tactics that produced impressive results.”

Launched in 2017, CPC+ was a national advanced primary care medical home model that aimed to strengthen primary care through regionally based multi-payer payment reform. The CPC+ program ended on December 31, 2021.

Primary Care First started in 2021 with a small number of clinics. Many CPC+ practices joined the program in 2022, once they completed the CPC+ program. PCF continues to strengthen primary care services and introduces risk and capitation to the payment model.

The Patient-Centered Medical Home program is a model to deliver and organize  healthcare that helps to improve the patient’s experience of care, improve the health of populations and reduce or control the costs of healthcare.

Both the CMH and PCF models put the primary care provider and patient at the center of the healthcare system and allows patients to be informed about their care and be more in control of their health.

In the midst of the pandemic in 2021, members served by providers in these programs had lower rates for emergency department visits and inpatient admissions and received more preventive care than people not served by participating providers.

PCF and PCMH emphasize the following comprehensive primary care areas of focus:

• Access and continuity
• Care management
• Comprehensiveness and coordination
• Patient and caregiver engagement
• Planned care and population health

PCF and PCMH provide practices with a robust learning system, as well as actionable data feedback to guide their decision-making. The care delivery redesign seeks to deliver better care and produce a healthier patient population.

Arkansas PCMH clinics receiving 2022 awards

Arkansas PCF clinics receiving 2022 awards