As health insurance prices have soared in recent years, a Little Rock health care management company has been able to keep premium increases low for its clients, it says.
Arkansas Health Network works with a company’s self-insured plan and government agencies to help cut health care costs and improve the health of people in the plan, said Bob Sarkar, president of AHN. AHN isn’t a health care or insurance plan but works closely with the employee’s primary care physician to provide the best care.
Companies have seen “some sharp increases in premiums because the health plan costs are often off the charts,” said Sarkar, who is also vice president of population health and provider alignment for CommonSpirit Health of Chicago, the parent company of CHI St. Vincent in Little Rock. He works to advance the company’s population health strategy and oversees its clinically integrated network across its Arkansas, Georgia, Kentucky, Ohio and Tennessee markets.
A survey of employer-sponsored health plans found that in 2025, the total health benefit cost per employee rose 6% from 2024, according to a November news release from Mercer, a consulting firm that is a part of Marsh of New York, a global professional service company. The rising prices are partly caused by higher prescription drug costs, including costly weight loss drugs. This year, the total health benefit cost per employee is expected to rise 6.7%, the highest rate in 15 years, Mercer said.
AHN has been managing CHI St. Vincent’s employee health plan for several years, and it has managed to keep the health care network’s costs down. (AHN is a wholly owned subsidiary of CHI St. Vincent.)
CHI St. Vincent’s health insurance premium increased 2.2% in 2026, Sarkar said. In 2025, the premium rose 3.6% from the previous year, and in 2024, there was no increase in premium from 2023, he said. There are about 6,000 people in CHI St. Vincent’s health plan.
“We appear to have been able to, with our model of care, go in the opposite direction and buck the trend of cost in health care,” he said.
In addition, AHN helped save CHI St. Vincent about $2.8 million in 2024 against what it had been projected to spend on medical and drug costs before the plan year started, Sarkar said. In 2023, CHI St. Vincent saved $3.7 million.
To reduce health care costs, AHN analyzes claims and near real-time clinical data from electronic medical records. That data alerts AHN to the patients who could be becoming high-risk patients. “So, proactively, we are able to manage them, to keep them, as much as possible, away from hospitals or from ERs, which are basically high-cost areas,” Sarkar said.
AHN has a network of providers — including health coaches, nurses, social workers and pharmacists — on standby who work with patients’ providers to improve health. AHN also makes sure that the patients are having their annual exams and are following their doctors’ orders, Sarkar said.
AHN also partners with the Arkansas Children’s Care Network and Next Health Clinically Integrated Network of Fayetteville, which is sponsored by Washington Regional Medical Center. AHN is working with five employers, but Sarkar said that he hopes to add other companies.
Under AHN’s current contracts with members, the employer pays a fee for care management services, Sarkar said. And if AHN lowers health care costs for the employer, the shared savings are split between AHN and the company.
It’s a “long-term investment that all parties — physicians, consumers, employers, patients, as well as the community — gain from it,” he said.
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