LITTLE ROCK — A legislative panel Wednesday endorsed creation of a website to gather information from doctors as part of the state’s overhaul of its health care payment system.
Meeting jointly, the House and Senate public health committees gave a favorable review, without dissent, to a rule directing state officials to set up a website where health care providers would submit information about the care they provide in a handful of treatment areas. The rule goes next to the Administrative Rules and Regulations Subcommittee of the state Legislative Council, which meets May 16.
The website, or “multi-payor provider portal” as the state Department of Human Services calls it, would launch July 1.
Officials plan to use the information submitted via the portal to track individual courses of treatment, or “episodes” of health care, and compile reports on their outcomes, which will then be posted to the site.
Gov. Mike Beebe has said he wants to replace the current payment system, in which doctors are paid for each service they provide, with an outcome-based system in which doctors are paid for episodes of care. The first changes to the payment system are scheduled to be implemented Oct. 1.
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The state is trying to reduce the burden on its Medicaid program, which is expected to face a shortfall of between $250 million and $400 million in the fiscal year that begins July 1, 2013.
Sen. Missy Irvin, R-Mountain View, whose husband is a doctor, said she was concerned that submitting data to the portal would be an additional burden on doctors.
“They do have a family and a life,” she said.
DHS Director John Selig said most of the data is already included in the information doctors submit with insurance claims.
“It’s actually very little data we’re asking (for),” he said.
Some legislators said they were frustrated with the scant amount of details they have seen about the payment reform initiative.
“I understand it’s frustrating,” Selig said. “We’re working as quickly as we can. You should be frustrated, because as fast as we’re working it’s not fast enough. I understand that.”
But Selig assured the legislators that they would have the opportunity to review significant changes before they were implemented.
The portal will gather information in five treatment areas: upper respiratory infections, prenatal care, congestive heart failure, hip and knee replacements and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder. A separate portal will be set up later for the fifth area that has been targeted for changes, developmental disabilities.
Charlie Green, director of the state Division of Developmental Disabilities Services, said officials have not yet determined what information they will need for that portal. Developmental disabilities services are different from the other areas of treatment, he said, because the services are continuous.
“We don’t have acute episodes of DDS. We’ve got lifetime episodes,” he said.
For purposes of payment, an episode of care for a developmentally disabled patient will be one year, Green said.
Officials are working to develop a tool for assessing patients’ needs so that care can be provided in the most efficient manner possible. They hope to complete that work before the end of this calendar year, he said.