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St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro will open Arkansas’ first Maternal Life360 HOME this month, an expanded Medicaid program anticipated for more than two years, the Arkansas Department of Human Services announced Friday.
In November 2022, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) approved a DHS request to allow an additional 5,000 pregnant and postpartum Arkansans to receive at-home visits during a high-risk pregnancy. The St. Bernards program will serve 100 people in its first year, and DHS expects this number to grow, especially as other hospitals join the program, department communications chief Gavin Lesnick said in an email.
“Opening the first Life360 Maternal HOME in Arkansas marks an important milestone, and it builds on our statewide focus on improving the availability and quality of care for pregnant women and babies across our state,” DHS Secretary Kristi Putnam said in a press release.
Arkansas has among the nation’s highest maternal and infant mortality rates, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. Additionally, Arkansas is the only state that has taken no action to adopt the federal option of extending postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months after birth.
Putnam and Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders have said this expansion would be “redundant” and “duplicative,” since the state has other insurance coverage options for postpartum low-income Arkansans.
Life360 started as part of Arkansas Health and Opportunity for Me (ARHOME), the state’s version of Medicaid expansion in place since 2021. It served about 2,000 families in 2022 when then-Gov. Asa Hutchinson announced that DHS would request the CMS waiver to increase the program’s reach.
Initially, only ARHOME enrollees were eligible for Life360 HOMEs, but the program has expanded to include any Arkansan on Medicaid with a high-risk pregnancy living in a Life360 service area, Lesnick said. Additionally, Arkansans must not be currently receiving other state or federally funded home-visiting services to be eligible for the program.
Expanding Life360 HOMEs was among the many recommendations a strategic committee of state officials issued in September, as required by Sanders’ March executive order creating the committee with the purpose of developing a plan to improve the state’s maternal health infrastructure and outcomes.
The committee’s report also recommended considering higher Medicaid reimbursements for existing maternal health care providers and implementing presumptive Medicaid eligibility for pregnant Arkansans.
Rep. Aaron Pilkington, R-Knoxville, sponsored legislation in 2023 that would have implemented both presumptive eligibility and 12 months of postpartum Medicaid coverage. Neither bill advanced due to cost concerns, but Pilkington posted on X Thursday that he will advocate for the same legislation in 2025.
He also said Arkansas should pass several other policies regarding Medicaid and maternal health, including the implementation of Medicaid reimbursements for doulas and community health workers, which the strategic committee also recommended.
The St. Bernards Life360 HOME will serve Craighead County residents, and White River Medical Center in Batesville will launch its own Life360 HOME “in the near future” serving Independence County, according to the DHS press release. Lesnick said a start date for White River has not been finalized.
Additionally, Baptist Memorial Hospital’s locations in Little Rock, North Little Rock, Conway and Jonesboro have submitted letters of intent to participate in Life360 HOMEs, along with Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences in Little Rock, Lesnick said. All but Baptist in Conway have submitted applications to DHS.
“St. Bernards has a mission ‘to provide Christ-like healing to the community,’ and we cannot have healthy communities without healthy moms and babies,” Emily McGee, St. Bernards vice president of Nursing and Women’s & Children’s Services, said in the press release.
St. Bernards is a Catholic institution, and it has also applied for the state’s pregnancy resource center grant for the second year in a row. The health system has sought to use the money for “counseling services and material supplies” for pregnant individuals both times.
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