HJAR Mar/Apr 2022

HEALTHCARE JOURNAL OF ARKANSAS I  MAR / APR 2022 11 of mental health disease and therapy that’s available. So, there’s both a high demand, low supply, and that’s a huge concern. That’s, again, nothing new. The pandemic has tended to exacerbate a lot of things. Workforce shortages is one, and mental health challenges is another. We read about it every day, and we see it every day, and it’s real. I have significant concerns about that. Another big one for me, and this existed pre-pandemic and still continues to be a sig- nificant concern of mine given where I sit and what I do, is the way we finance health- care in the United States. To date, we’ve not been able to figure out a way to unravel how we do it and to change how we do it at any substantive level. When you take an already challenging way to finance healthcare and you overlay that in a very poor state like Arkansas, it creates some significant chal- lenges for us. I know there are parts of the country that are perfectly happy with the way we pay for healthcare, but it’s not here. And that’s probably because of our eco- nomic standing in the U.S., and the fact of the matter is, we here inArkansas have rela- tively the same cost structure of any health- care entity across the country, yet the way we get paid is significantly less, maybe even at the bottom. We don’t get a break on knee implants here in Arkansas because we’re a poor state, but yet our reimbursement’s significantly lower than other parts of the country. We’ve got some significant challenges here. That then puts pressure on the state budget with Medicaid. It puts pressure on local employers and their ability to afford premiums, to keep up with the technology and the access to care. For Arkansans, if we want to continue to have access to the very best healthcare — which I believe we deliver outstanding healthcare here in Arkansas — but if we want to keep up, and if we want to continue to be a place where you don’t have to leave the state to get the care that you need, there’s a cost associated with that. And, it’s very expensive, and you have to be able to compete nationally, both for technology and for talent. We’ve got a big challenge here in Arkansas related to how we pay for it. Within that issue is just general afford- ability of healthcare for the people in Arkansas, whether it be a worker or resi- dent paying their share of the premium or the employer, it’s a challenge when you’re in a state like Arkansas, again due to the poor economic condition and rapidly ris- ing healthcare costs. Another newsworthy item, and one that wasn’t a huge issue for me two and a half years ago, is supply chain and supply chain resiliency. How long will it take for that to normalize again?What’s that going to mean for us in the future, whether it be from an availability standpoint or a cost standpoint? Those are certainly significant challenges we have now. I don’t really know fully how long it will take for those issues to normal- ize again. Editor I know you’re not a clinician. This Omicron variant has made us feel a little like Michael Corleone in The Godfather: Part III, “Just when I thought I was out, they pull me back in!” As this interview happens, the wave seems to have peaked, hopefully. I know you don’t have a crystal ball, but as a general in the fight, what are you anticipating as far as COVID variants, their effect on staff, patients, and the com- munity at large? Wells Well, thank you in pointing out the fact that I’m not a clinician. However, I do spend a lot of time around clinicians, and I do have a background in microbiology, which has been helpful in terms of the language used during a pandemic and being able to com- municate with clinicians during a pandemic. That has served me well. What I would tell you from my listening to clinicians and to experts in science and what I know from my own background, is, generally speak- ing, what has happened with Omicron at a population level may not be a bad thing. The hope you have with a virus like this is For Arkansans, if we want to continue to have access to the very best healthcare ... and if we want to continue to be a place where you don’t have to leave the state to get the care that you need, there’s a cost associated with that. And, it’s very expensive, and you have to be able to compete nationally, both for technology and for talent. We’ve got a big challenge here in Arkansas related to how we pay for it.” “