[1] Medicare's participation in the system is authorized by the Social Security Act and is tied to a growth limit in payment per admission.
Medicare pays higher rates for hospital services in Maryland than it does under the national prospective payment systems.
[1] Separately, Maryland plans to reduce its unadjusted all-cause, all-site hospital readmission rate for Medicare beneficiaries to the national mean.
The commission will seek to shift to population-based payment models that reward providers for improving health outcomes, enhancing quality and controlling costs.
[1] Maryland already operates a "Total Patient Revenue" model that establishes fixed global budgets for certain rural hospitals on the basis of their historical cost trends.