To best support your needs, MHA must constantly balance the demand to address current issues while anticipating opportunities and challenges to come. Last Thursday and Friday, MHA’s Executive Committee of the Board met to ponder the issues shaping health care in Maryland over the next decade.

Last week AHA held a biennial national meeting of all nine Regional Policy Boards. CMS Administrator Seema Verma spoke on the final day, delivering strong words on the federal government’s push toward value-based payment. “We must move past the status quo, and past a fee-for-service payments to a system in which we’re paying providers to keep people healthy, reduce costs and deliver better outcomes,” she noted.

A bipartisan effort to address surprise medical bills is expected to be among lawmakers’ top priorities when Congress returns this week from August recess. MHA is engaged on the issue —including the House’s No Surprises Act and Senate’s Lower Health Care Cost Act—and has been since it arose months ago.

Every day thousands of committed health care professionals come to work in your hospitals to ensure we deliver the highest quality care to patients. That puts you among the state’s largest employers — directly employing 107,000 people, supporting 113,000 related jobs, and contributing more than $30 billion each year to our state’s economy.

MHA recently returned from the Maryland Association of Counties conference, where our team met with state and local leaders, lawmakers, policymakers and influencers to advocate and better position us as we head into the 2020 legislative session.

Mass shootings in El Paso, Texas and Dayton, Ohio about one week ago put physicians, nurses and other health care workers once again on the front lines of tragedy. We grieve for the victims and admire the resolve of these first responders to act quickly and skillfully to care for the injured and help their communities heal.

We know from media reports, legislative action, and comments from community members that health care bills often confuse and distress patients. Concerns have amplified since insurers started to narrow their networks and to raise consumer cost-sharing to ever greater levels.​

Scrutiny in the media and among lawmakers in Annapolis has called into question the soundness of governance of our hospitals and health systems. Those pursuing this line of inquiry are not finished. We expect this matter to gain steam again as the 2020 legislative session approaches.​

Affordable health care coverage is essential for people to have access to the care they need. It is particularly important in Maryland, where our success under the Total Cost of Care Model rests on improving the health of the state’s entire population. We can’t prevent unnecessary hospital use unless more Marylanders can afford coverage.

All Marylanders deserve an equal opportunity to achieve optimal health — regardless of social, economic, or demographic differences. Though we all share this goal, health disparities persist stubbornly.

We talk a lot these days about the social determinants of health – those things other than genetics, personal choices, and health care that affect how healthy each of us will be. In discussions I’ve had recently, it’s striking how often food insecurity is mentioned as a top challenge – especially given Maryland’s high per capita income.

Our state’s hospitals and health systems continue to strive for new and different ways to transform care. To support that work, your Maryland Hospital Association is leading the Stakeholder Innovation Group (SIG) which convened at the request of the Maryland Health Secretary Robert Neall. Part of the group’s work was the launch of the Innovations for Better Health website. This inventory demonstrates what we already knew: Hospitals and care providers are working together to innovate and advance health care for all Marylanders.

The Health Services Cost Review Commission (HSCRC) granted Maryland’s hospitals their largest global budget increase in recent memory last week — a 3.59% increase in total revenue (3.28% per capita) for fiscal year 2020.​ The average hospital is expected to receive about 3.3% growth in total regulated revenue — or 3% per capita.​

A highly trained and fully engaged workforce is essential for Maryland’s hospitals as you strive to deliver the best clinical care along with a superior experience for patients. We know you face challenges filling in-demand positions, retaining good talent, combating workplace violence, and more.

Health care costs are up nationwide, but in Maryland, hospitals and health systems are controlling health care spending while improving the quality of care.​ That is an impressive win under our unique agreement with the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, which requires all payers — Medicare, Medicaid, employer-sponsored insurance plans, and others — to pay the same rates.​

May is Mental Health Month. Though we in health care don’t need a designated month to know that our nation — and our state — is in a behavioral health crisis.​

Maryland’s hospitals have steadily raised their patient experience scores. And, while our hospitals are improving faster than the nation, it has not been enough to close the gap. Delivering a consistently positive experience to all patients remains a challenge.​

Today marks the start of National Hospital Week. We at MHA want to share our appreciation for all of you – the more than 100,000 people who advance the health and well-being of 6 million Marylanders.​

We, the staff of MHA, rely on member input to fulfill our mission advocating for, and helping improve the performance of, Maryland’s hospitals and health systems. Throughout the year, we seek and receive your valuable input. Our multiple councils, task forces and work groups churn through serious issues – quality and safety of care, payment policy, behavioral health, medical liability, and much more.​

The past two weeks have seen a lot of Medicare-related news. For starters, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) released a series of proposed Medicare payment rules for federal fiscal year 2020, including:​