Jonesboro health system will expand Medicaid services for high-risk pregnancies in Paragould

A Northeast Arkansas hospital system will expand a program for pregnant patients on Medicaid a year after launching it, according to a Monday news release from St. Bernards Medical Center.

In November 2022, the U.S. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) approved a request from the Arkansas Department of Human Services to allow an additional 5,000 pregnant and postpartum Arkansans to receive at-home visits during a high-risk pregnancy. St. Bernards launched the Maternal Life360 HOME program in Jonesboro in November 2024. The health system will start providing the same services in Paragould “in the near future,” DHS communications chief Gavin Lesnick said.

“Through our Pregnancy Clinics and Maternal Life360 HOME programs, St. Bernards is helping individual moms and babies get healthy starts,” said Emily McGee, St. Bernards vice president for Nursing and Women’s & Children’s Services, in the news release. “We provide the care they need, regardless of their insurance status, financial ability or health history… Our calling is to serve them however and wherever we can, and we plan to continue to grow by serving additional counties in the near future.”

The program for low-income women with high-risk pregnancies aims to meet not only their medical needs but also their “health-related social needs” such as food security and housing, according to the news release.

Life360 started as part of Arkansas Health and Opportunity for Me (ARHOME), the state’s version of Medicaid expansion in place since 2021. Initially, only ARHOME enrollees were eligible for Life360 HOMEs, but the program now includes any Arkansan on Medicaid with a high-risk pregnancy living in a Life360 service area.

Arkansans must not be currently receiving other state or federally funded home-visiting services to be eligible for the Life360 HOME program.

DHS funds three other Life360 HOME programs. according to the news release. Two are in Little Rock and North Little Rock in partnership with Baptist Medical Center, and one is in Batesville in partnership with White River Health. All three started services within the past year, DHS Division of Medical Services Director Elizabeth Pitman said in the news release. She said three more hospitals are working to become Life360 HOME providers.

Those three hospitals are CHI St. Vincent in Hot Springs, Mercy Hospital Northwest Arkansas in Rogers, and the University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences, based in Little Rock, Lesnick said.

Arkansas has consistently had among the nation’s highest maternal and infant mortality rates, according to the Arkansas Center for Health Improvement. Additionally, Arkansas is the only state that has taken no action to adopt the federal option of extending postpartum Medicaid coverage from 60 days to 12 months after birth.

Gov. Sarah Huckabee Sanders has said that this expansion would be “redundant” and “duplicative,” since the state has other insurance coverage options for postpartum low-income Arkansans. She convened a strategic committee in early 2024 to develop a plan to improve the state’s maternal health infrastructure and outcomes, and the committee’s recommendations included expanding access to Life360 HOMEs.

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The committee’s report also recommended considering higher Medicaid reimbursements for existing maternal health care providers and implementing presumptive Medicaid eligibility for pregnant Arkansans.

The Healthy Moms, Healthy Babies Act of 2025 established this presumptive eligibility. It also provides Medicaid reimbursements for doulas and community health workers, and it established pregnancy-related Medicaid coverage for specific treatments.

The law passed with bipartisan support despite some lawmakers’ concerns that it reduced the statute of limitations for any actions against alleged medical injuries during birth from a child’s 11th birthday to a child’s fifth birthday.

Legislation that would have expanded postpartum Medicaid coverage to 12 months after birth did not pass the Legislature in 2023 or 2025.