This bill creates a primary care council representing key health stakeholders to develop and recommend a prospective payment model for primary care providers. It also requires entities to create primary care spend targets and creates incentives for evidence-based services such as integrated behavioral health.

The bill also creates a primary care stabilization fund to support these payments, with annual reporting and oversight by the health policy commission.

This bill establishes a Technical Advisory Committee to the HPC to perform the following duties:

o establishing adjustment factors as part of the redesigned health care cost growth benchmark;
o provide technical advice to HPC upon request;
o provide HPC with operational, policy, regulatory or legislative recommendations; and
o produce an annual report and other reports as requested by HPC.

It also changes the state’s health care cost growth benchmark from a single-year benchmark to a multi-year benchmark cycle measuring the average annual growth in total health care expenditures during a period of 3 consecutive calendar years

This bill strengthens primary care access by:

• establishing a Primary Care Board within the Health Policy Commission (HPC) to
  develop recommendations for improving access, workforce recruitment and retention,
  payment models, and integration with behavioral health;
• introducing an all-payer primary care capitation model to be used by both public and
  private payors;
• setting expenditure targets for primary care as a share of total health spending—starting
  at 10% in 2027 and increasing to 12% in 2028;
• requiring public and private reimbursement rates for federally qualified health centers to
  align with MassHealth reimbursement rates; and,
• establishing graduate medical education payments for primary care specialties and other
  physician residency training in fields experiencing physician shortages.

This legislation requires health carriers to annually report primary care expenditures

This act creates the Arkansas Primary Care Payment Improvement Working Group. This working group will evaluate and provide recommendation to improve primary care delivery, payment systems and produce a report that provides a recommendation for a primary care spending target.

This bill requires the Office of Health Strategy to consider and adjust for any unintended effects or impacts of primary care spending targets on funding for individuals with developmental disabilities when benchmarking a state-operated reinsurance program.

This bill requires health care plans and payors to have a minimum of twelve and one-half percent of their total expenditures on physical and mental health annually be for primary care services.

This bill requires health carriers to report primary care expenditures annually.