Like every state across the country, Iowa faces a shortage of doctors and health care workers, rising costs of care, and the need to ensure access to quality services in rural and poor areas. served in our state. But we have a solid foundation on which to build:
Iowa’s 2024 Health Care Rankings:
1st — Lowest healthcare costs (WalletHub, 2024)
4th — Best health system (WalletHub, 2024)
9th — Access to health care (US News & World Report, 2024)
10th — Quality of health care and prevention for women (Commonwealth Fund, 2024)
11th — Best state to have a baby (WalletHub, 2024)
12th — Health care outcomes (WalletHub, 2024)
14th — Women’s health (Commonwealth Fund, 2024)
By leveraging our strong public-private partnerships, we will continue to build on this foundation and meet all challenges head on. To this end, the Governor is proposing comprehensive rural health care legislation to continue to promote the health and well-being of all Iowans.
GOVERNMENT REYNOLDS PROPOSES:
- Investing $642,000 in Newly Unbundled Maternal Medicaid Rates
- Work with CMS to implement a funding model to stabilize labor and delivery units and encourage regional partnerships between hospitals
- Consolidate and more than double the funding of our student loan repayment programs
- Establish an enhanced Medicaid Graduate Medical Education (GME) payment to draw down more than $150 million in federal dollars for more residency slots at Iowa’s 14 teaching hospitals
- Streamlining the approval process for Certificates of Necessity (CON) to build new or improve existing health facilities
- Improving the Health Information Exchange Network by allowing HHS to competitively acquire and manage it
Investments in maternal health
We must ensure that mothers and their babies receive good care throughout pregnancy and beyond. On average, Iowa women are only 11 miles from a birthing hospital, but not all hospitals have the capacity to handle a complex pregnancy and delivery.
Over the past four years, we have worked with the Legislature to fund three “Centers of Excellence” across the state to focus on maternal health care.
To further develop this hub-and-spoke model and support maternal health providers across the state, the Governor’s proposal:
- Invest $642,000 in unbundled maternal Medicaid rates, including for midwives and doulas.
- Direct Iowa HHS to seek federal approval to provide more Medicaid pricing flexibility, with the goal of encouraging creative regional partnerships
Streamlining the medical facility approval process
The governor’s proposal will streamline the process for approving CONs to build new health care facilities or improve existing ones by eliminating the Health Facilities Council and moving review to HHS with support from a new Health Care Economist. health.
The new health care economist will also help develop the State of Iowa Health Care Economy report and the CON process required by a law passed last session.
Physician recruitment and retention
The entire country is currently grappling with a growing shortage of doctors, leading to fierce competition for medical professionals. Ranking 44th in number of doctors per capita, Iowa needs to do better.
To recruit and retain more doctors in high-demand fields, Governor Reynolds proposes to:
- Consolidate and more than double our investment in five existing public health loan repayment programs
- Establishing a Medicaid GME Enhanced Payment to leverage more than $150 million in federal dollars to create 115 new planned residency slots at our 14 hospitals, fully implemented over four years for 460 new physicians trained right here in Iowa.
Improvements to health information exchange
To prepare for the future of health care and better support patients, we must continue to build a data-sharing superhighway to connect all of Iowa’s hospitals and health care providers.
Governor Reynolds’ bill gives HHS the authority to competitively acquire and manage the network and replace the board with an advisory committee.