Earlier this week, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services released to hospitals the final documents for the first two care redesign program tracks: the Hospital Care Improvement Program (HCIP) and the Complex and Chronic Care Improvement Program (CCIP). The programs, which will launch July 1, will allow hospitals to access comprehensive Medicare data and share resources and incentives with care partners.

 

On Thursday at MHA's offices in Elkridge, hospital representatives heard directly from Willem Daniel of the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation as well as HSCRC Executive Director Donna Kinzer and Principal Deputy Director Chris Peterson on their expectations for program participation, oversight and monitoring as well as to answer implementation questions. A recording of that meeting and material can be found here.

 

Hospitals interested in participating in the first performance period from July 1, 2017 to December 31, 2017, must sign the Participation Agreement and Implementation Protocol by June 1. The second performance period will run from January 1, 2018 to December 31, 2018. For questions regarding the care redesign programs contact Nicole Stallings at 410-540-5069.

Maryland Medicaid has started reconciling payments to hospitals under the Medicaid Electronic Health Records Incentive Program. In 2016, Medicaid announced changes to EHR incentive payment calculations related to lengths of stay and accounting of rehabilitation and psychiatric services. The changes are: the discharge date is now added to the length of stay calculation to result in net gain of one day eligible for incentive payments, and Medicaid has shifted from using the "nature of admission" variable to the "major service" variable to more accurately exclude rehabilitation and psychiatric services per CMS guidance, which may result in a net loss of days eligible for incentive payments - particularly for psychiatric services. Medicaid is staggering the reconciliation process, starting with hospitals that are in their fourth and final year of the EHR incentive program. As part of the process, Medicaid is asking hospitals to perform their own analyses of days eligible for EHR incentive payments. If you have questions, contact Maansi Raswant. 

MHA's 2017 Annual Membership Meeting will be held at the Four Seasons Hotel Baltimore on June 12 and 13 and is designed for senior leaders of Maryland's hospitals, including CEOs, trustees, chief medical officers, chief nursing officers and others. Invitations have been mailed.  

 

This year's theme - Transformation - captures the tremendous change at your organization, as well as the political and policy changes we are seeing at the state and national levels. Hospitals are driving change, especially in Maryland - from volume to value, from fee-for-service to global budgets. Are we still on the right road? Will health care take a national detour?

 

The meeting begins on Monday evening June 12 with a reception, as we celebrate the important work underway to transform health care in Maryland. We will recognize the elected officials and hospital leaders who have gone above and beyond in that effort.

 

If you need to book an overnight stay at the Four Seasons, the deadline for our block of rooms and the special MHA discount rate is Friday, May 12. They are going fast, so don't miss out.

 

Click here to view the annual meeting brochure and click here to register.

 

Contact: Kathy Gotwalt

The Centers for Disease Control's National Center for Health Statistics is accepting registration from eligible clinicians, professionals, and hospitals indicating their intent to submit data to the National Health Care Surveys as part of the Merit-Based Incentive Payment System and the Medicare and Medicaid EHR Incentive Programs (meaningful use). You may attest to Objective 8 - Public Health and Clinical Data Registry Reporting, Measure 4 for meaningful Stage 3. The National Health Care Surveys are designed to answer key questions of interest to health care policy makers, public health professionals, and researchers. The surveys are nationally representative and provider-based. Consequently, trends in the types of care delivered in each setting can be monitored in an objective and reliable manner and can be examined in relation to characteristics of providers, patients, and clinical management of patients' care. Please see the updated National Health Care Surveys Declaration of Readiness here. Interested parties can register their intent to submit data by emailing [email protected].For more information, please visit the CDC Meaningful Use website.