(The Center Square) – Arkansas has approximately $60 million in American Rescue Plan funds to distribute to eligible hospitals, but those hospitals must choose an accountability plan to get the money, according to the Department of Finance and Administration.
The House and Senate Public Health, Welfare and Labor Committees met jointly Tuesday and received an updated timeline of ARPA funds.
Hospitals must choose between two different accountability pathways to receive ARPA money, said DFA Deputy Director Andy Babbitt.
A hospital can choose to make “strategic reforms,” which would mean instituting changes internally to help with financial sustainability, or they can decide to make “transformative changes,” which would involve a more significant shift like changing from non-critical access to critical access or merging with a larger hospital.
Babbitt told lawmakers they would like to continue monitoring the hospitals through July and potentially make initial distributions by September.
“For me, it’s really about us as a state trying to say if we’re going to put money towards these hospitals, we want to make sure we’re not just throwing our money to a hospital that’s going to close its doors in four months. That’s an issue and a problem. We want to be as wise as we can with these dollars and make sure that we’re helping them,” said Sen. Missy Irvin, who chairs the committee.
Irvin said September sounds “kind of far off” for the first disbursements.
“I would appreciate if that could be sped up to be honest with you,” Irvin said. “Let’s get this money out the door. I think they’ve waited quite a while.”
Of 26 hospitals deemed eligible for the federal money, only 18 chose to participate and request funds.
“Nine of the hospitals requested a specific dollar amount that ranged from $1.5 million up to $10 million. Most of the hospitals through the assessment did not request a specific dollar amount,” said Janet Mann, deputy secretary and state Medicaid director for the Department of Human Services.
Mann said DHS proposed a cap of $5 million per hospital to ensure there were enough funds to be allocated to all hospitals but emphasized it was just a proposal that could be modified.
The American Rescue Plan was passed by Congress in March 2021. Arkansas received $2.6 billion.
