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DHS Conducts Review, Signs Agreements with Three PASSEs

02/13/2019

For Immediate Release:

February 12, 2019

Media Contact:
Amy Webb
Chief of Communications
[email protected]

 

Marci Manley
Deputy Chief of Communications
[email protected]

PASSE representatives Jason Miller, with Summit Community Care, left, Nicole May, with Empower Healthcare Solutions, and John P. Ryan, with Arkansas Total Care, right, signed agreements today, February 12, 2019 with Paula Stone, deputy director of the DHS’s Division of Medical Services, standing.
PASSE representatives Jason Miller, with Summit Community Care, left, Nicole May, with Empower Healthcare Solutions, and John P. Ryan, with Arkansas Total Care, right, signed agreements today, February 12, 2019 with Paula Stone, deputy director of the DHS’s Division of Medical Services, standing.

DHS Conducts Review, Signs Agreements with Three PASSEs 

(LITTLE ROCK, Ark.) – The Arkansas Department of Human Services (DHS) has signed agreements with three organizations to move to full implementation of the Provider-led Arkansas Shared Savings Entity (PASSE) program, DHS announced Tuesday.  

Arkansas Total Care, Empower Healthcare Solutions, and Summit Community Care have successfully passed their “readiness reviews” conducted by DHS. During the readiness reviews, each organization was required to demonstrate compliance with a series of critical functions including their ability to support their Medicaid members on a statewide basis and their ability to pay providers for services.  

DHS brought in an outside consultant, Tony Rogers, to assess the readiness of the three PASSEs and DHS to begin full operations on March 1, 2019.  Rogers is a nationally-known Medicaid managed care expert with over 30 years of healthcare executive management experience. Before becoming an independent consultant, he served as Deputy Administrator for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid (CMS), Center for Strategic Planning and as Arizona’s Medicaid Director. His specialties include Medicare and Medicaid managed care, health plan and systems operations, and health system redesign.  He has regulated health plans in the public sector and operated health plans in the private sector.       

“We congratulate the PASSEs on their success over the past year as they prepared for this day. Mr. Rogers came in and spent a considerable amount of time with us and at the PASSE locations with their staff. He identified a few areas for improvement, but the PASSEs and the State all passed readiness reviews,” said Paula Stone, Deputy Director of the Division of Medical Services. 

“We’re very confident in the PASSEs that are moving forward, and that confidence was boosted when we went on site to do the readiness reviews,” added Melissa Stone, Director of the Division of Developmental Disabilities Services.  

The Provider-led Arkansas Shared Savings Entity (PASSE) is a model of organized care created by Act 775 of 2017 to manage the services of individuals with developmental disabilities and behavioral health needs. To form each PASSE, local Arkansas providers entered into partnerships and chose an experienced organization to perform administrative functions, such as claims processing. The PASSEs have been coordinating the medical care of their members since February 2018. These three companies will provide all Medicaid covered services to cover approximately 43,000 Medicaid-eligible individuals.  Beginning March 1, they will receive a monthly payment from DHS for each member enrolled in the PASSE and become responsible for paying all medical bills on their behalf.  

PASSEs are a new Medicaid provider type approved by CMS. They are also regulated by AID and held accountable to DHS under federal managed care rules.  

For more information about the PASSE program, visit passe.arkansas.gov.  

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