Public Health, Welfare and Labor- House & Senate

Ladies and gentleman of the committee if you would please take your seats we're going to get started. All right a Mister chair do you have any comments all right we're gonna go ahead of I need a motion to approve the September the six minutes. A. To have a motion to approve the minutes all right second all those in favor say aye all those against thank you the most the minutes past all right let's go down to number D. Adam D.. And we have miss it in innings from of the minority Arkansas minority health commission if you'd come to the table please. Everybody has report. All right in ladies and gentleman of the committee there is a report on your desk it looks like this. All right please introduce yourselves for the record and you may begin. Good morning can you adding sit Director of Arkansas minority health commission. Your partner health. Beatrice my Jack in Arkansas minority health commission. And S. the Frazier Arkansas minority health commission. You're recognized thank you. Good morning my name is king Eddings I am the new director of the Arkansas minority health commission thank you for the opportunity to review our fiscal year twenty twenty to report with you. The mission of the Arkansas minority health commission is to ensure all minority are cans is equitable access to preventive health care and to seek ways to promote health and prevent diseases and conditions that are prevalent among minority populations are vision is that minority our Kansans in underserved communities of color have equal opportunity and access to health health care and preventive well care. To summarize the commission's work for fiscal year twenty twenty two we continue the important work in creating nurturing and participating in programming that is seats in our legislative mandate vision and mission. We focused on six goals of which I'll highlight a few of those efforts the outcomes of those efforts are listed throughout the report which you should have. Go one was to increase the number of minority our Kansans obtaining screening for diseases that disproportionately impact minorities our team utilized our mobile health unit to provide free health screenings for chronic diseases like diabetes hypertension heart disease and HIV aids. We have also continued our partnership with Arkansas Human development Hispanic initiative to offer health education and screening to the Hispanic population in the state we're fortunate to have partnerships with various state wide organizations like our care DHS Jefferson comprehensive care and others to provide these preventive screenings. Goal two was to increase the number of minority our Kansans who receive education regarding diseases that disproportionately impact minorities to accomplish this goal are bridge magazine continue to be a trusted source of education to help reduce and or prevent chronic diseases and minority populations in Arkansas and to also spotlight partnerships and collaborations around the state which are so important our website the use of television streaming and social media gave us the opportunity to reach people where they work with our educational messages our educational outreach programming through radio is Central Arkansas targeting the African American community through our partnership with the Arkansas medical dental and pharmaceutical association and Northwest Arkansas targeting the Marshallese community with Marshallese physician Dr Sheldon recline was highly utilized. If you need these two radio stations provide listeners with the opportunity to engage with positions directly by calling in to get health related questions and concerns addressed. Our two signature programmatic efforts seventy five Sundays and camp I can also continue to be highly requested despite the pandemic. Seventy five Sundays is a twenty one day meal replacement male enhancement program designed to encourage healthy eating and physical activity can I can is a three day co ed summer day camp for children ages nine to twelve designed to promote healthy lifestyles physical activity and healthy self esteem. Gold three was to establish a collaborative collaborative network of stakeholders to address workforce diversity in education of health care professionals we continue our partnership with tri county rural health network based in Phillips county to utilize training community health workers for boots on the ground helping to educate and disseminate educational materials additionally we cosponsored the pathways academy at UAMS is diversity equity and inclusion department to expose low income K. twelve students to career opportunities in stem healthcare disciplines our healthcare workforce diversity scholarships provide a source of needed funding for minority students pursuing higher education to help address the shortage of health professionals and the under representation of minorities in healthcare fields to that end we awarded thirty eight scholarships in the fall of twenty twenty one and forty five scholarships in spring of twenty twenty two. Go for was to establish a network of coordination and collaboration with other agencies and organizations addressing the health of minority populations are partnerships and collaborations with state and federal agencies help to address minority health in Arkansas we're grateful for the Arkansas department of health centre for health protection branch for the partnership to help with COVID that COVID nineteen vaccination equity for minorities and underserved or Kansans additionally we are thankful for the partnership with eighty eight and CDC Paul Coverdell national acute stroke program prevention grant to help address stroke in the State. We also continue our partnerships with agencies like legacy initiatives in severe county to provide prostate cancer screenings and other preventive healthcare screenings for the Hispanic community. Goal five was to establish a constituency of individuals community based organizations and communities committed to the mission and goals of a MHC in the spring we partner with the Arkansas cancer coalition to help president it's twenty third Arkansas annual Arkansas virtual cancer summit to help educate attendees about cancer and tobacco control. We look forward to continued partnership with organization like Arkansas cancer coalition and others to educate minority and underserved communities in the state. The wisdom and guidance of our commission board continue to be imported to the Arkansas minority health commission staff yet COVID nineteen continue to hamper in person meetings of our commission board in fiscal year twenty twenty two as a result our quarterly commissioners meetings were held virtually. Goal six was to advocate for a policy that will promote the health of minority are cantons by identifying gaps in data addressing the health status in minority groups and developed with partners a plant for filling those gaps are seventh annual bye bye bye Enele minority health summit focused solely on mental health in minority and underserved populations in Arkansas we are pleased to host a panel dealing with mental health in children and also one with adults the panels were led by mental health professionals from around the state and was hosted both in person and virtually the Arkansas minority health commission team will continue to work toward decreasing health disparities that exist in Arkansas through a variety of it avenues like community outreach prevention and intervention strategies advocacy and collaborative research and health screening efforts and more. A few of those plans strategies we have to meet the needs include expanding our programmatic efforts with camp I can SO the name fry sundaes resuming in person community health forums in each congressional district expanding our ask the doctor radio series hosting our Arkansas state Arkansas minority health election and more on behalf of the Arkansas minority health commission team and its board of commissioners thank you for your continued support and helping to advance the mission and vision of the Arkansas minority health commission thank you. All right we have from a representative placement with comment. Thank you for that report I'm glad to hear that mental health is one of your goals to work with individuals on mental health because that's a problem across the board so I'm glad that you are working on that thank you thank you all right of representative Boyd. You have a question is representative who who's sitting in the. Okay okay Allen okay. All right. You and thirty nine. Okay. Thank you Ballinger on thank you all for coming and thank you for your report today I listen very intensely about all the screens that you all are doing can you tell me have you all wrapped up your efforts in council screen. That is a great question and thank you for asking that we. We work with the Arkansas cancer coalition to provide cancer screenings like colorectal cancer screening test kits that can be taken home the the sample can be provided and then mailed in we also have a partnership with UAMS to increase colorectal cancer screening as well as our continued efforts with prostate screening and the like additionally we continue to work with UAMS to provide mammography use around the state our program director and grants coordinator Mr gauges mind dragon is here and can also add to that discussion you have anything that. Thank you yes so our efforts have increased we are ex to have extended the invitation each and every time that we trouble the state of Arkansas sending in our outreach events to the prostate foundation as well as she mentioned the colorectal screening that we now have on board along with the education and the And yeah thank you. All right follow up all right real quickly okay can you tell me if there are any efforts all you all's part to address healthcare dances around the state of Arkansas. Thank you for that question we have established a partnership with short of college in North Little Rock to help them create at a health clinic for students staff and the community we also are doing other outreach efforts as they become available I can do some additional research and report back to you on that thank you yes Sir all right is there a number twenty. A who's okay a representative Pilkington you're recognized for a question. Thank you chair Bledsoe thanks for your work one of things I'm curious about is. obviously due to the public health emergency the roles of expanded as it goes away we're worried about people getting kicked off the rolls I was curious with the minority community minded are you all have any programs or anything in place to make sure that some of those who might get kicked off with a change of address or anything like that are are able to get re enrolled is there anything currently in the works to address that. Representative bill Macchio more great question I think we can coordinate with DHS and see if there's ways to do that there but I think also when they do their screenings they connect them to a local healthcare professional and they can help guide them to give them some advice and guidance through that process will be connecting them to look professional we can we can record it just a little bit more okay one thank you. All right ladies and gentlemen I don't see any other questions we thank you so very much for. Okay represent. You were there then disappeared yes you're recognized thank you chairman thank you all so much for the work you do are really appreciate that looking forward to on the new things that you wanted to do with maternal mortality of and would do anything to increase breast feeding among the minority populations I know that's really one thing that will improve their maternal tallies increased amount of women that are resting so do you have anything on that Avenue and all that you guys are looking at for the future thank you for that question Prior to me coming to the Arkansas minority health commission I did a lot of work and continue to do a lot of work in the space of of breast feeding and thank you representative Bentley for the partnership that you have had with us over the years with healthy active Arkansas we continue our breast feeding efforts not only in the community providing education and helping the community understand the importance of breast feeding also helping companies and businesses set up lactation accommodations for their breast feeding employees are we are we have just finished a project with the department of insurance to help them create a lactation accommodation space for their employees we've also done some extensive work with the Little Rock Air Force Base in helping them to provide lactation accommodations for their a military personnel so the work continues on the outreach efforts continue as well. All right any other questions. All right seeing none thank you so very much for that could report appreciated alright ladies and gentleman the of public health committee has been invited to the rotunda to stand in opposition to marijuana you know that's the amendment for and so we're going to flip the attendant we're gonna go to the I. S. P.'s right now and we're going to batch them in the that's what we plan to do right now. All right. The turnover. And it will be from a. Study one all the way through eighteen. Right. Any questions. All right all those in favor of batching the ISPs today say aye. All those opposed all right thank you very much now all the ISPs go out getting back to the regular agenda. Of we will go to E. Medicaid electronic visit verification of date and that is a list with Pittman and Martina Smith if you come forward please. If you introduce yourself for the record. Good morning Elizabeth Pittman director for the Division of Medical Services. Good morning Martinez Smith division director provider services and quality assurance right you're recognized. We just have a few slides to go through and then we'll just take any questions that you might have just wanna give an update on where we are on fully implementing the electronic visit verification. Let me see if I can make this work. Okay. But. There we go okay just a reminder of why we are doing the electronic visit verification are there was a federal mandates that twenty first century cures act it also avoids delays and potential non payments I'm is effective management tool for providers it allows them to monitor where their care givers are and how they how often they're working what time you're arriving at the time they're leaving verifies that services were rendered helps prevent any fraud or liability and results in a higher percentage of paid claims we are seeing through and those claims that go through the EBV system known as authentic care versus those that go directly through and then my **** and we are seeing a higher percentage of paid claims three EBV and then again because of that results in more efficient billing for the services we are currently using EBV for which is personal care attendant care under the ARChoices waiver and rest. this is just a brief timeline on September thirtieth of this year we send out an initial notification to all providers of our direct claims admission cut off date so we are going to stop allowing any direct claim submission I'm on December first served and in the beginning on November first of this month we actually started suspending the claims for one week so they will pay a week later but we're suspending them so that we can calculate who is still using direct carrier billing or why they're still using it and do some direct outreach to those providers so throughout the month of October we continue to do you have reminder emails we did weekly calls at with both vendors who were doing third party systems ends with the providers we did face to face outreach and and we also did some social media campaigning and Martina director Smith will talk more about the self directed client outreach happy to. Again on December first we will actually begin to nine those claims and so we are actually and implementing a tactical response team right now it is partially assembled but when we begin fully denying those claims it will be fully assembled and not nineteen will help those providers whose claims are denied to get them paid through that UV vis System. Currently we have twenty six out of I believe over one hundred provider agencies who are not using EBV so you're really have over the past year I know it's taking us awhile to get here but it's been worth it we've and made a lot of progress and getting agencies to use that and we've been doing direct phone calls and direct communications we continue to have the technical calls available through several different phone lines and we continue to have weekly calls with providers so that's how we're doing our region I know you have somewhere to be so I'm rushing through this little bit please ask any questions that you might have you'll see here at the bottom where that you the phone line is as well as our and our link if you're having any problems with EBV or you know if providers please send these to these resources. And without I'm gonna turn it over to director Smith. So self direction for EDT for self direction clients actually began in the spring of twenty twenty one during that time we use emails we utilize phone calls we actually went to the homes and performed a face to face visits with those individuals that would allow us to come into their homes to show them hands on how to use the application we also held training sessions at different times during the day to make sure that everyone had an opportunity to see and have training to use the application we also place to Tory oils on the DHS website as well as the contractor's website and then again we've done a lot of one on one outreach to those individuals if they would allow us in their home. As of October twenty twenty two we only have three individuals out of the twenty three hundred self direction clients that are using the paper time sheets so they have not began to use the application at all we have emailed mailed called offered at in person visits as well to show them how to use the application so they will no longer use those paper time sheets and at this point we have eighty seven clients that have started the process of using EBV so they are using the contractor's website to logging in those times that they are providing service or receiving service however and they have not obtained it Medicaid paean to complete the process so actually that number was at one hundred and nine on October the twelfth as you can see we've gotten it down to eighty seven still doing that outreach calling them visiting them sending them letters this week we plan to send another letter to them in the mail so advised them that they must use easy B. or risk losing their service. Thank you any questions. All right any questions from the committee. All right seeing none thank you so very much for that report thank you. Going on to the next. I don't think that Senator Hammer is here would just put him at the end he's over it to. thank you for a we reckon we're ready for you. You want to go down to the table senator. G.. Yes we we will have to go back to if the G. thank G. so he maybe he can get over and. Get over next door. Thank you ma'am chair Kim Hammer state senator. You're recognized thank you measure. Under legislation that was passed involving the subject matter panda pandas it was required to report to the public health of committee as far as the progress that we've made since the inception of this committee you have a handout that outlines all the efforts have been put forth into this one of the reasons of beneficial bring to this morning's because through partnership with children's hospital UAMS others information is being sent out to all the PCPs in the State of informing them of what panda pandas is and how to receive treatment for do have Mister Ryan Paul Ryan who's going to join us for a brief resume of meeting and what he's going to do is emphasize that we are participants because of this effort of the legislative branch and the ministry branch we're participants in a approximately thirty four million dollar a form of study that is involving treatment of panda pandas and there are cancers that are involved in this it be good for the members to know this in case approached by constituents that they could get them to the center of excellence and with that manager like to recognize Mr reineck sure would love to join a gym he is the flagship for the certification of a center of excellence for panda pandas and he's going to give us just a brief update on the pharma and also just a a progress where we are future would allow all right. Send me to zoom in yes we don't see him on the monitor thank you for waiting to be added is what he told me that that he has to. He's waiting to be authorized or to be joined in just a minute yes ma'am. The chair. Because your head we. I'm going to have to call IT so we could done it ask you to sit to the side and we'll go in with the next one it may take a few minutes madam chair may make a suggestion yes for the sake of time what is going to share is that we are participants in a thirty four million dollar big pharma study and if members have patients or if they have constituents that they can contact centre you M. S. and may we could reschedule him to zoom in at the next meeting thanks for the second time that sounds even better thanks we've filled obligations of the Legislative women somebody's gone check concerning. See if this sentence on. Okay we'll look yes we'll take your suggestion of senator Hammer will come back again that's fine and all of its run yes please in that we're so sorry thank you very much for understanding alright ladies and gentlemen we're gonna go back to health and that of Michael Gruppe and if Michael would come in. Sturch his discussion please. And that's number L. Fite a myth. Good morning Michael Gruppe barbarian varmint. I have. This. You're recognized. So acting ninety two that was passed in the last this section. Required us to put together a report to determine if the recycling fuel rods nuclear fuel rods lives up viable. We have completed that reported as required in the act and I presented to the. committee this morning for for acceptance. All right any questions comments all right to comment to her representative played. Mr pay thank you for your work on this you and Mister warm Act worked very hard on this for a long time I'm just glad you decided not to read that page per page so but I know you have some suggestions moving forward in the next session your report it looks very good but thank you for your work on this thank you Sir can thank you so much all right going to item and each of representative Ladyman. Thank you madam chair of representative Vaught could not be here today so I have a few comments about the report that's due I would ask the committee to allow the health services subcommittee which is meeting November the fourteenth to adopt the report of a study of mental and behavioral health and send it to a L. C. as required in ACT eight oh two of twenty twenty one I want to give you a few comments about the report and the work that represented lots working group that met six times during the interim and many subcommittees met as well this group composed of the H. as personnel mental health providers public education personnel and family members of persons with behavioral health issues met for two to three hours at each of these meetings they have come up with a series of recommendations to improve the system of providing help to persons with mental and behavioral health issues some of these recommendations only required administrative changes and some will require legislation that she will introduce in January the report is still being compiled and will be submitted to the health services because subcommittee on November fourteenth so without objection the House and Senate public health welfare and labor committee will allow the health services subcommittee to submit this report to the Arkansas Legislative Council by December one As required in ACT eight oh two of twenty twenty one. Senate. Thank you let's go in. Any objection any objections. Thank you. All right let's go down to a I. This is the Arkansas department of health center for local public health. Review of rules so if you would Introduce yourselves for the record we will. Charles. Excuse me Charles Thompson attorney Arkansas Department health correct for the twenty four Arkansas county health you're recognized thank you madam chair thank you coach Ladyman what you have before you is the update to the rules or on volunteer health care immunity what this is is these laws were already on the books and we already have rules on them what it is is really a comp combine them into one rule so that they're easily they're easy to find and administer the majority of it is is just if you look is correction of grammatical errors and updating of language the the substantive portion is in fact the update on the compliance of that nine sixty eight of twenty twenty one represents Pilkington's Act this added Added therapist addiction specialists and counselors in the volunteer healthcare program to bump the see use that you could receive for providing volunteer volunteer or charitable care up from eight to thirty two we did have one public comment the issue was we use the term physician's assistant that was what is it currently in the code for that code section however since then physician assistant Code section for the for the industry for the profession itself is not in the not in the possessive so it's physician assistant so that's what we've updated to reflect that pursuant to the public comment that was the only public comment we had would be happy to take any questions thank you does anyone have a question. All right seeing none thank you very much thank you this will go out as adopted without objection rule stands thank you. Right we're still trying to decide about senator Hammer and to. The expert that he had so just hold on one minute. All right I think we're just gonna let him do it the next meeting so are the eight is there any more business to become to come before us. All right seeing none we are returned.