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.​