The National Safety Net Advancement Center (SNAC) at Arizona State University recently announced six safety net organizations that will receive a total of $500,000 in funding to carry out health care payment and care delivery reform implementation projects. SNAC, which is based out of the College of Health Solutions’ School for the Science of Health Care Delivery and supported by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, also recently selected 56 organizations to receive scholarships to participate in six virtual learning collaboratives that aim to improve the ability of safety net organizations to adapt to a changing health care payment and care delivery environment.

Safety net experts at Starling Advisors and OptumInsight are leading these learning collaboratives and seek to create valuable shared learning environments that will allow safety net organizations to collectively learn how to provide high quality care to underserved populations. In less than a year, SNAC has partnered with organizations in 31 states and continues to grow its network.

Here’s an overview of the exciting organizations and projects SNAC is funding:

AltaPointe Health Systems (Mobile, AL)

“Using Risk Stratification to Offer Coordinated Care Management in a Behavioral Health Organization”

As a risk-bearing member of a regional care organization, AltaPointe manages behavioral health services for Medicaid patients and is also invested in managing overall medical spend. In preparation for a shift in payment from Fee-For-Service Medicaid to managed care in October 2016, AltaPointe is redesigning aspects of care delivery for some patients. The technical assistance provided through this funding will help AltaPointe to create a system for risk stratification to optimize utilization of targeted interventions. The identification of effective strategies for data-driven, acuity-based patient activation is anticipated to bolster the nascent evidence-base in this area.

Chickasaw Nation (Ada, OK)

“Transforming the Care Team in an Integrated Primary Care Clinic”

Chickasaw Nation Medical Center, a leading tribal health center, will be utilizing new software for service data capture, forecasting, and analytics in order to support care delivery reforms. The new software will centralize multiple data sources to enable quality reporting, tracking and outcome forecasting, and sharing of data across internal systems. Technical assistance provided in the project will facilitate quality improvement efforts related to care delivery reforms possible with the new data capacities.

Guadalupe County Hospital (Santa Rosa, NM)

“Preserving Access to Rural Care – Clinical Integration Initiative”

Guadalupe County Hospital and project team will work with to integrate health care services across frontier hospitals in six New Mexico counties. Using state-wide Medicaid claims data, the project will identify system utilization patterns to enable data-driven clinical service integration. Armed with claims and service utilization data and a large collaborative team of stakeholders, the project will retain technical assistance expertise to develop alternative payment model and gain-sharing methodologies.

Hudson River Healthcare (Tarrytown, NY)

“Advancing Value-Based Care in NY’s Hudson Valley”

Hudson River Health Care co-founded the first IPA of safety net primary care and behavioral health providers in New York State. The IPA is currently developing its first value-based payment arrangement with a managed care organization. The goal of this project is to help build capacity for Hudson River Health Care to 1) establish the ability to identify high-cost/high-risk patients; 2) define an approach for coordinating their care; and 3) agree upon a methodology for allocating potential revenues and losses.

Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (Des Plaines, IL)

“Moving toward Value – Financial and Data Infrastructures Improvements”

In previous experiences with value-based contracting, Lutheran Social Services of Illinois (LSSI) was asked to propose a rate structure early in contract negotiations. The organization lacked necessary data and expertise to produce solid contract rate proposals based on organizational costs. Through this project, LSSI will obtain technical assistance consultation to solidify a value-based rate structure. The barriers and facilitators to contract rate development identified in this setting is anticipated to inform others transitioning to value-based payments.

 Primary Health Inc. (Urbandale, IA)

“Risk Stratification and Care Coordination in a Health Center Network”

Eleven of Iowa’s FQHCs have joined together to form an integrated primary care network known as IowaHealth+ (IH+). The move towards value-based contracting and IH+’s network-based approach necessitate that health centers standardize risk stratification and associated care coordination strategies across organizations. Technical assistance will be provided to align risk stratification and prioritization of populations across Iowa’s health home programs and IH+’s value based purchasing contracts. This will inform the development of the model care coordination strategy and identify potential barriers to successful implementation.

Media Contact:  
Barb Millman
Phone: (602) 496-1934
Email: Barb.Millman@asu.edu

About Arizona State University
ASU is a New American University, promoting excellence in its research and among its students, faculty and staff, increasing access to its educational resources and working with communities to positively impact social and economic development. Find out more at asu.edu. 

About Robert Wood Johnson Foundation
For more than 40 years the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation has worked to improve health and health care.  They are working with others to build a national Culture of Health enabling everyone in America to live longer, healthier lives. For more information, visit www.rwjf.org. Follow the Foundation on Twitter at www.rwjf.org/twitter or on Facebook at www.rwjf.org/facebook.

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