MHA's Mike Robbins, Senior Vice President, Rate Setting, was a featured presenter during this week's American Hospital Association webinar "Global Budgets as a Pathway to Ensuring Access," viewed by more than 150. Global budgets are one of nine strategies recommended by AHA's Task Force on Ensuring Access in Vulnerable Communities. Dr. Joshua Sharfstein, Associate Dean for Public Health Practice and Training and Professor of the Practice in Health Policy and Management, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, also presented, along with GBMC President & CEO John Chessare. Slides from the webinar are available here. More information on the task force's work is available on AHA's Ensuring Access web page.

The second of three Clinical Conversations forums will be held Wednesday, November 8, at MHA. At the first forum last month, representatives from about 30 hospitals began an insightful discussion about emergency department discharge protocols for patients with substance use disorders and those experiencing an overdose. Attendees shared their experiences and challenges with naloxone prescriptions and dispensing, screening, and brief interventions for these patients. The forum next week and the final forum on November 29 will focus on referrals to treatment, the role of non-clinical personnel, and medication assisted treatment, among other topics. MHA's goal is to help identify a consensus on best practices for this patient population and help those that are developing their emergency department discharge protocols in order to comply with the state's HOPE (Heroin and Opioid Prevention Effort) Act of 2017.

Contact: Shamonda Braithwaite

The Maryland Department of Health anticipates that the Maryland Primary Care Program will begin next summer, pending federal approval. Meanwhile, the state is holding four regional meetings to enhance understanding of the program. The meetings will provide in-depth discussion and address questions specific to each area of the state.  

 

Please contact chad.perman@maryland.gov with questions.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services this week issued a final rule updating the requirements of the quality payment program for physicians and eligible clinicians mandated by the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015. Two tracks are included: the default Merit-based Incentive Payment System, and the advanced alternative payment models. The rule adopts key policies for the program's 2018 performance period, which will affect clinician payment in 2020. Among other policies, CMS will increase the low-volume threshold in MIPS, thereby excluding more than 540,000 eligible clinicians from the program. CMS also will implement an incentive payment measurement option that allows hospital-based clinicians to use their hospital's value-based purchasing results for the cost and quality categories. However, the agency will delay the availability of the option until the calendar year 2019 reporting period. Read more at AHA News.