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The Continuing Crisis in the Public Health Workforce

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The Current Public Health Environment

The public health workforce is in the midst of a crisis, dealing with staff shortages, accelerated retirements and unfilled positions.

The current climate was exacerbated by Covid-19, but many challenges began long before 2020’s pandemic. The public health system underwent a significant contraction following the Great Recession in 2008-2009, losing more than 40,000 positions in state and local governments across the country. While some of those positions were regained with Covid-19 funds during the pandemic, recruitment, diversity and retention remain as challenges, especially for hard to fill positions in nursing and epidemiology. Public health staff report high rates of burnout due to the Covid-19 response and the political climate that resulted, including suffering symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder. It is likely that there will be staff shortages for the foreseeable future, increased retirements, and departures to other parts of the healthcare industry competing for skills with higher compensation.

New Funding Streams Available

State and local health departments have been receiving significant amounts of one-time money, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recent allocation of $3.5 billion specifically for governmental public health efforts.

Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) has created a new workforce research center for public health. The AmeriCorps program has developed a specific public health component. These new initiatives were designed to build and support the workforce in governmental public health. As state and local health departments receive or apply for these various sources of workforce development funding, HMA can provide existing technical assistance and training to minimize inefficiencies and duplication of efforts that might be created by a fragmented approach across state and local units of government developing independent approaches to the utilization of WFD funds. 

HMA Workforce Expertise

The public health group at Health Management Associates (HMA) is made up of more than 100 colleagues with expertise in public or population health improvement, experienced working with national, state or local organizations seeking to improve public health outcomes. If your organization is looking to improve your public health workforce efforts, it is important to utilize expertise and consolidate efforts across the country so each unit of government is not “reinventing the wheel.” HMA can help multiple organizations in developing plans and coordinating processes for recruiting, training and development of the public health workforce.

HMA understands the skills that are needed to achieve high-performing public health and accountable care. Our expertise developing workforce within safety net delivery systems and accountable care organizations involve transferrable skills for the current challenges in building and developing the public health workforce. We have expertise in recruiting and are creating new training and retraining methods to meet the needs of public health teams, accountable care organizations, graduate medical education, nursing education, learning collaboratives, online training and team simulation training. We understand the care coordination, care management and IT support systems needed to backstop the workforce and meet quality and equity goals.

Contact our experts:

Jean O’Connor

Managing Principal

Dr. Jean C. O’Connor is a public health lawyer with more than two decades of experience working with communities, educators, … Read more

Linda Vail

Principal

Linda Vail is an accomplished public health leader, creative problem solver and strategic thinker. She has extensive experience in opioid … Read more

Value-Based Payment (VBP) – Is your organization ready?

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Utilization of value-based payment (VBP) strategies continues to expand, with states and health plans recognizing the benefits of rewarding outcomes over volume. This includes population based VBP initiatives intended to address disparities. Health Management Associates (HMA) is at the center of these initiatives, supporting payers with development and implementation, as well as supporting providers through the transition from a traditional FFS model to maximizing reimbursement through effective care delivery, supported by the necessary administrative infrastructure and resources. As our clients in health care communities move forward with alternative payment models, we have developed tools and strategies to achieve the essential milestones to successful implementation.

Milestone 1: Provider Readiness Assessment

Successful planning for the transition to VBP begins with an understanding of where your organization is starting from, informing the targeted milestones associated with each providers’ unique strengths and challenges.

Understanding that success under VBP models requires adjustment of both clinical and administrative practices, HMA has created an assessment tool that considers the programmatic, financial, and technology resources necessary for VBP implementation. In addition to the ability to leverage these resources, organizations must have the capacity for VBP components such as cost reporting, revenue cycle management, and real time risk monitoring through the collection and analysis of data.  

“With VBP on the horizon for our organization, HMA helped us to determine our readiness and to devise a strategy to remediate gaps in operations in order to be successful with the new payment model.”

– Tamara Player, CEO; Polara Health, AZ

Milestone 2: Strategy Development and Change Management

A change in reimbursement methodology requires organizational realignment of administrative and programmatic approaches. Assessing and supporting staff through these changes is a key milestone for success. Activities in which HMA have supported our clients include:

Creating leadership and governance buy-in

Preparing the Board and Staff for VBP

Aligning mission and vision with payment models and accountability metrics

Project Management, including development and monitoring of implementation plans

Cross functional team support

Milestone 3: Data Collection and Reporting Capabilities

The ability to collect and report meaningful outcomes is at the core of successful engagement in VBP. Following an assessment of current capabilities, HMA has supported provider organizations in maximizing electronic health record and other data system capabilities to capture data essential for reimbursement, as well as increasing analytic capabilities that are essential for monitoring outcomes to ensure programs can pivot when data indicates outcome achievement may be at risk. Activities include:

Technology and Data Enterprise configuration to support analytics and reporting

Creating real-time access to data

Benchmarking current outcomes against proposed VBP metrics

Alignment of current framework to payer metrics

Creation of internal clinical leadership infrastructure to support proactive monitoring and action in response to data

Milestone 4: Business Office and Finance

All aspects of an organization’s financing can be impacted by transitions in payment methodology, including cash flow, impacting cash on hand for capital and other expenses. Anticipating these changes and adjusting accordingly are key to readiness for VBP and importantly, mitigating risk during the transition. HMA can assist with:

Assessing organizational ability to accept risk

Developing a risk corridor based on organizational readiness

Negotiating alternative payment arrangements with payers

Milestone 5: Clinical Programmatic Approaches under VBP

VBP arrangements provide opportunities for organizations to move closer to the goal of achieving outcomes for their clients, rather than productivity targets and units of service. This includes incorporating approaches that could not receive reimbursement under an FFS model. With this flexibility comes the opportunity to review and adapt clinical approaches and programming, including population specific strategies. HMA is ready to support these efforts through:

Workforce analysis

Re/design of clinical workflows  

Implementation of measurement-based care

Optimization of clinical templates within the EHR to support data collection and reporting

Understanding the opportunities of value-based payment across the continuum of payment models

While these activities may seem overwhelming, HMA is ready to support your organization to receive reimbursement based on meaningful improvement for your clients through technical assistance and training on each of the core elements outlined above.

Contact our experts:

Rachel Bembas

Principal

Rachel Bembas is a results-driven leader in behavioral health quality and population health analytics who has worked extensively to advance … Read more

Roxanne Kennedy

Principal

Dr. Roxanne Kennedy is a licensed clinical social worker (LCSW) with more than thirty years of experience providing clinical and … Read more

Debbi Witham

Principal

Debbi Witham is a seasoned executive with experience delivering high quality, mission driven healthcare. During her career, she has focused … Read more

HMA’s CCBHC program implementation support

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Implementation

Since the inception of the Certified Community Behavioral Health Clinics (CCBHC) model, we’ve been working across the country with designated CCBHCs, to help implement the model in ways that maximize the value of the designation.

We’ve worked with a diverse range of behavioral health providers and other stakeholders in planning for and implementing the CCBHC model both within the demonstration program framework, as well as through federally funded CCBHC-expansion grants. Our team of experts supports providers to leverage the CCBHC model to support their overall agency mission and growth goals. 

APPROACH

HMA’s CCBHC-related support spans a spectrum from strategic planning through grant securing, grant implementation, organizational change management, to demonstration program participation. HMA offers implementation support that is customized to each organization and its unique circumstances, while leveraging our unmatched breadth of experience with Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), CCBHCs, behavioral health treatment and support services, state Medicaid systems, clinical integration, health information technology, quality improvement, healthcare finance, and strategy.

Strategic planning to see how CCBHCs can support each agency to meet its goals

Readiness assessment to best position the agency for CCBHC certification in a competitive landscape

Write SAMHSA proposals to secure CCBHC grant funding

Implementation support in alignment with CCBHC criteria, as well as SAMHSA and state requirements

Ongoing quality improvement to support improvement and advancement of CCBHC programming

Help agencies transition from CCBHC grant funding to a sustainable reimbursement model

In addition, HMA can support a CCBHC implementation with any or all of the following services: financing, workforce recruitment/retention strategies, project management, technical assistance, and health information technology and exchange.

RESULTS

In 2022 alone, we supported behavioral health providers to attain more than $110 million in expansion grant funding they will use in their communities, including over $46 million in CCBHC-planning, development, and implementation grant funding and more than $63 million in CCBHC-improvement and advancement grant funding.

In addition, we have supported more than 20 states to write their CCBHC planning grant applications to initiate a state-run CCBHC model. Most recently, we had 100% success rate for our FY23 planning grant applications, resulting in four states receiving one year planning grants to build a state-run CCBHC model.

Contact our experts:

Kristan McIntosh headshot

Kristan McIntosh

Principal

Kristan McIntosh specializes in behavioral health programming designed to both enhance access to community-based care and facilitate program and organizational … Read more

Josh Rubin

Principal

Josh Rubin provides consultation, strategic planning, analysis, and technical assistance to health care purchasers, providers, platforms, and regulators with a … Read more