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Barnes fielded questions from staff, faculty and residents at the UAMS Southwest town hall. Image by Andrea Hooten

Insurance Barriers, Maternal Care Top Concerns at UAMS Southwest Town Hall

June 30, 2026 | University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences (UAMS) Chancellor C. Lowry Barnes, M.D., learned about a unique issue during his recent town hall at the UAMS Southwest Regional Campus in Texarkana: the Arkansas/Texas state line that divides the city.

UAMS Southwest sits less than five miles from the Texas border, but Texas patients who seek healthcare from the campus’ clinic often walk away because their insurance won’t cover healthcare in Arkansas.

Mattlene Miller, LPN, said Texas residents once comprised 65% of the patient directory.

“Now we’re down to about 30% because there are so many patients that we have to turn away because they have a Texas policy that we cannot take,” Miller said

Residency director Matthew Nix, M.D., explained that industrial growth has favored Texas, and housing developments have followed, tipping the population to the Texas side where 69% of residents live. Nix also thought part of the issue lies with UAMS not accepting Texas insurance. Barnes said he would verify this and work to correct it, if so.

In addition to the insurance divide, Barnes said an even wider divide exists between Arkansas’ rural populations and access to healthcare. He plans to address that with a bigger footprint.

“We have to grow. In healthcare, we’re lucky if we make a 1.5% profit margin,” said Barnes. “That’s not very much. It means that you have to be bigger so that small percentage is applied to a much bigger number of patients. Then we can invest in the things that we need to invest in.”

The latest investment in growth is the plan to lease and operate Encore Medical Center in Bryant. The additional 53 beds will allow more transfers of critically ill

patients from other hospitals in the state. UAMS also signed a co-management agreement with Helena Hospital, which will bring a new perspective to the hospital’s daily operations and connect east Arkansas with more specialists, academic programs and clinical research.

The new agreements underscore Barnes’ eagerness to expand UAMS services and the bed count. He said that UAMS accepted 2,600 patients from other hospitals a year ago, but the institution had to turn away an even larger number in 2026 because UAMS’ hospital beds were full. With an effort to increase efficiencies and shorten lengths of stay, the 2026 goal was 3,000 patient transfers, but UAMS eclipsed that two weeks ago with 4,000.

“We’re still turning away a few thousand, so we have to do things to grow our capacity. We have a Central Building (on the UAMS Little Rock campus) that used to have hospital rooms. We’re now looking at what it would cost to go back in and open some of those wards again. We’ll look at everything to see what we can do to help us grow,” Barnes said. “Obviously, we’d like to do more and more with our campuses. Part of our growth plan is that we want to have healthcare facilities in as many different places as we can where there are University of Arkansas System campuses. Otherwise, it’s very tough for employees to use their SmartCare benefits.”

Employees also highlighted needs closer to home during the June 22 town hall. For Cardin Massey, a cancer patient navigator for the clinic, the issue isn’t lack of space but a breakdown in the chain of care. Her cancer patients who see oncologists at UAMS Little Rock typically do not have a primary care provider (PCP).

“If we could get referrals from UAMS Little Rock here, I can actually promote our providers here,” said Massey. “Referrals are very low.”

Barnes said patients may be connected to specialists in Little Rock without being linked back to PCPs in their home communities. Another employee added that cancer patients typically come to the UAMS Southwest clinic for labs, but they don’t have a PCP at the clinic.

Barnes asked who the lab tech was. Phlebotomist Regina Johnson raised her hand, and Barnes said with a laugh, “Ah, you just became the chief marketer, too.  You can change the pattern of referral. When those patients come and get their lab draw, if you see they don’t have a primary care doc, say, ‘Do you realize how many great docs we have here? What can we do to help you? Have you had your screening done yet? Why don’t we get you in?’”

Another care gap that UAMS Southwest shares with other rural pockets of the state is obstetrics. Marjorie Hudson, M.D.,

associate program director and a graduate of the UAMS Southwest Family Medicine Residency Program, said the clinic has recently carved out Wednesday afternoons as a prenatal clinic but asked how UAMS can better support maternal care in southwest Arkansas.

Barnes acknowledged that no one has an answer for the obstetrics crisis but asked Hudson for her ideas. She recommended a more seamless referral for patients late in pregnancy, circumventing the three- to four-week wait for an appointment. Nix also suggested a family medicine obstetrics fellowship, partnering with Christus St. Michael Health System in Texarkana. This would offer an extra year of obstetrics training beyond the three-year family medicine residency.

A broader look at UAMS’ rural healthcare programs that impact the health and well-being of rural Arkansans can be found at the UAMS Rural Health Hub.