The Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System (AHCCCS) recently notified the hospitals and practices selected for participation in the Targeted Investments Program (TI Program), an AHCCCS program that provides financial incentives to eligible providers to develop systems of integrated care. This incentive program mandates participation in Health Current and the use of the HIE to securely share clinical data to improve care coordination among care teams, identify and manage patient populations and develop high-risk patient registries. Most of the participants selected for the TI Program are participants in Health Current already; however, 55 of these practices will be new participants in Health Current.

Participants in the TI Program will need to meet two critical deadlines. First, they will need to have a signed participation agreement with Health Current by March 1, 2018. Second, they will need to be set up to receive hospital admissions, discharges and transfers (ADT) Alerts by September 30, 2018. The March 1 deadline is required to allow sufficient time for participants to be set up for ADT Alerts by the September 30th deadline.

Health Current is actively working with the 55 practices selected to participate in the TI Program who are not yet Health Current participants to assist them in getting a signed Health Current Participation Agreement by the March 1st deadline.

According to the AHCCCS website, the TI Program aims to:

• Reduce fragmentation between acute and behavioral health care;
• Increase efficiencies in service delivery for members/patients with behavioral health needs by improving integration at the provider level; and
• Improve health outcomes for members/patients with physical health and behavioral health needs.

The AHCCCS TI Program includes six types of organizations, each with slightly different milestones:

• Primary Care Provider Serving Adults with Behavioral Health Needs;
• Behavioral Health Providers Serving Adults with Behavioral Health Needs;
• Pediatric Primary Care Providers Serving Children/Youth with Behavioral Health Needs
• Behavioral Health Providers Serving Children/Youth with Behavioral Health Needs
• Justice Organizations Serving Adults Transitioning from the Criminal Justice System
• Hospital Providers Serving Adults with Behavioral Health Needs

All of these groups, with the exception of the Hospital Providers group, have the same HIE participation requirements – a signed Participation Agreement by March 1 and being set up to receive Alerts from Health Current by September 30, 2018.

For more information on the AHCCCS Targeted Investments Program, click here.