Deputy to lead state’s Medicaid-provider division

The Arkansas Department of Human Services will promote from within to fill a key role overseeing Medicaid-provider licensing when the current director leaves at the end of the month, officials announced Tuesday.

Martina Smith, 41, will be the next head of the Division of Provider Services and Quality Assurance, where she has served as deputy director to Jerry Sharum since March, according to a news release. Sharum, 44, told officials last month that he would resign as director Nov. 28 to accept a job in the private sector.

The division, one of eight at the Human Services Department, oversees licensing and inspections of Medicaid providers, including nursing homes and other long-term care facilities.

“We’ve been working hard this year to improve our processes so that we can better serve and protect the most vulnerable Arkansans during this pandemic and to improve a lot of our processes,” Smith said in a statement. “I’m eager to continue that work and have a great team of assistant directors and staff working alongside me.”

Smith, like Sharum, is an attorney.

She joined the Human Services Department’s Office of Chief Counsel in 2016 and later served as the agency’s privacy officer. Smith moved to the state in 2013 to work for the Arkansas Fair Housing Authority. Before that, she served in various roles for state government in Tennessee, the news release says.

As deputy director, Smith oversaw the division’s dayto-day business, the Office of Long-Term Care and the teams that inspect providers

In that role, she learned about the division “inside and out,” Human Services Department Director Cindy Gillespie said in a statement.

“She’s smart and ready to

take on this new challenge and to lead the division as it continues to improve how it serves the people of this great state,” Gillespie said.

Smith’s promotion will bump her annual salary from $89,677 to $108,110, agency spokeswoman Marci Manley said.

Sharum was paid roughly $113,000 per year. He’s leaving to take a job as an in-house attorney for a California technology firm, he said last week.

Sharum held the job for a little over a year. He oversaw the 2019 takeover of six cash-strapped nursing homes through the state’s receivership process.

Sharum also directed the agency’s decision to reject, for the first time, a nursing home licensing transfer, emails show — a decision that sparked a pending lawsuit from the spurned operator.

Sharum has been outspoken about the need to tighten vetting on incoming nursing home operators and better monitor existing operator’s finances, goals that have generally drawn support from provider groups and watchdogs.

He wrote draft legislation for the 2021 lawmaking session addressing the licensing application process for nursing homes.