State Flexibility Key to Advancing Health AI and PBM Reform: State Sen Vincent Polistina

CMS Administrator Mehmet Oz, MD, MBA, recently visited AtlantiCare in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Joined by State Senator Vincent Polistina (R, New Jersey) and Michael Charlton, MHL, president and CEO of AtlantiCare, they discussed rural health transformation, regulatory reform, and opportunities to expand medical education and technology in South Jersey.

During the visit, Polistina talked to The American Journal of Managed Care^® (AJMC^®) about the importance of state-level investment and agility to advance artificial intelligence (AI) and streamline regulation in health care. He noted that states are increasingly tasked with interpreting and implementing federal programs like pharmacy benefit manager (PBM) reform and 340B due to regional differences.

“States know best,” Polistina said, advocating for local control to improve health outcomes and innovation.

This transcript has been lightly edited; captions were auto-generated.

Transcript

Are there any state-level legislative or regulatory initiatives that would help providers implement AI?

I think there are a number of things we can do at the state level. Investing in these health care communities, investing in our health care institutions—we can do a lot of things from a budgetary standpoint to invest [and] to help improve outcomes. Then legislatively, to try to give them the flexibility that they need in order to get things done, and then from a regulatory standpoint, certainly to make sure that things can get done quickly, implemented quickly—when you're talking about AI to go through a process—is going to be incredibly important moving forward.

What is your opinion on states getting more involved in federal issues such as PBM reform and the 340B program?

All states are different across the country, and so I think you have to, and I think you're going to see more and more of that at our federal level. They're going to invest more in the states, so some of the money will be coming to the states, and then the states will be figuring out how to implement things better because all states are different. Even in New Jersey, when you look at New Jersey, North Jersey is much different than South Jersey. It's a matter of trying to do the best thing for each state, and states know best.