Baptist Health hospitals in Little Rock and North Little Rock have signed onto a Medicaid initiative that provides optional home visits for women with high-risk pregnancies, the health system announced last month.
The two hospitals, Baptist Health Medical Center-Little Rock and Baptist Health Medical Center-North Little Rock, are the third and fourth hosptials statewide to participate in the Maternal Life360 program for Medicaid recipients with high-risk pregnancy diagnoses who aren't receiving similar home-visiting services supported by state or federal funding.
Baptist Health's program serves Pulaski, Saline and Faulkner counties, the health system said in a news release, with expansion planned in unspecified areas.
According to the state Department of Human Services, 2,451 medical high-risk pregnancies were recorded in Pulaski County in 2021 -- 1,580 more than Washington County, the next-highest county total.
Baptist Health is collaborating with the Vanderbilt University School of Nursing to make use of the Maternal Infant Health Outreach Worker home-visiting model -- an "evidence-based approach" that employs local community health workers to provide approximately hour-long visits from pregnancy until two years after birth, according to the release.
According to the federal Department of Health and Human Services, the model has a dual educational and service focus for families. Educational topics include childbirth preparation, stages of labor, postpartum and newborn care, developmental milestones and early nutrition, while the services include help with public assistance applications, lactation support and connections to monthly support groups.
St. Bernards Medical Center in Jonesboro became the first medical center to join Maternal Life360 in November, serving Craighead County, according to a 2024 DHS release. The department's website also lists Batesville's White River Health System as an option for potential Independence County clients.
Department spokesman Gavin Lesnick said via email that the department is working to launch another such program at Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers.
The department is also "in the final stages of reviewing" an application from UAMS Medical Center in Little Rock, Lesnick said. Baptist Health Medical Center-Conway has submitted a letter of intent, but has yet to formally apply.
Maternal Life360 is one of three components of Life360, along with a Rural Life360 program that provides services to rural residents with mental illnesses or substance use disorders and a Success Life360 program targeted at veterans and at-risk young adults previously in foster care, incarcerated or involved with the juvenile justice system.
Per Lesnick, hospitals whose Maternal Life360 applications are approved become eligible for $100,000 in startup funding, half of which becomes available after a readiness review is completed. They also receive $300 per month for each woman enrolled.
The cost of the startup payments are split evenly between the federal government and the state, Lesnick has said. He said the federal government provides 90% of the funding for the home visiting services for women on the state's Medicaid expansion program, known as ARHOME, and the state provides the rest.
Life360 was approved by the federal government in November 2022 as part of ARHOME, which stands for Arkansas Health and Opportunity for Me. The program was providing coverage to 227,078 Arkansans as of May 1, per DHS records.
The initiative is part of Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders' efforts to address maternal health issues. Arkansas had 38.3 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births between 2018-2022, according to the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, which was the fourth highest rate among the 39 states for which a rate could be reliably calculated.
In March 2024, Sanders created a committee to make recommendations on improving maternal health. Some of the panel's recommendations were included in the Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act championed by Sanders and passed by the Legislature during this year's session.
The bill's provisions include establishing presumptive Medicaid eligibility for pregnant women, unbundling Medicaid payments for pregnancy care and paying for up to 14 prenatal and postnatal care visits.
DHS officials on Monday also announced the expansion Baby & Me, an education program for beneficiaries of the Special Supplemental Nutrion Program for Women, Infants and Children, to families in Johnson, Pope and White counties.
More than 5,500 families have participated in Baby & Me since it was founded in 2018, according to a news release announcing the expansion.
"The education provided on topics ranging from safe sleep to home safety to monitoring developmental milestones are essential for new parents," said Tiffany Wright, director of the department's Division of Children and Family Services, in the release. "We are thrilled to be adding new counties offering these resources to additional Arkansans."
The program was already available in Arkansas, Ashley, Bradley, Chicot, Crawford, Desha, Drew, Garland, Jefferson, Lee, Lincoln, Phillips, Pulaski, Sebastian and St. Francis counties.
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