In this episode of Free Arkansas, host Andy McNeill sits down with Troy Wells, President & CEO of Baptist Health, for a wide-ranging conversation on the challenges and innovations shaping Arkansas’s largest healthcare provider.

With 11,000 employees and 12 hospitals, Baptist Health plays a massive role in the state’s economy — and in the daily lives of thousands of Arkansans. But as Troy explains, leading a nonprofit hospital system in the lowest-reimbursed state in the nation comes with serious hurdles.

That’s right: Arkansas ranks dead last in both Medicare and commercial insurance reimbursement rates — meaning hospitals here get paid less than anywhere else in the country for the same procedures. And the impact of that reality ripples across every part of the system.

Andy and Troy dig into:

💰 Why Arkansas hospitals get paid less — and what that means for care

📉 The double burden of underfunding and high chronic disease rates

🏥 The quiet crisis of rural healthcare access

🧑‍⚕️ Why Baptist employs most of its doctors — and what that says about national competition

🧪 The promise (and pressure) of AI, boutique medicine, and longevity clinics

🧾 Medicaid cuts, misinformation, and the economics no one wants to touch

🛠️ What Troy would fix first if he could wave a magic wand This is a candid look at the economics, politics, and public trust behind one of the state’s most essential services — and what it will take to fix a system that’s stretched to its limit.