Maryland Emergency Department Wait Time Reduction Commission
House Bill 1143 took effect on July 1, 2024 and established the Maryland Emergency Department Wait Time Reduction Commission. The Commission will develop strategies and initiatives to recommend to State and local agencies, hospitals, and health care providers that address factors throughout the health care system that contribute to increased emergency department wait times. HSCRC staffs the Commission and will report on its activites, findings, and recommendations by November 1, 2025, and November 1, 2026. The bill terminates June 30, 2027.
Annual Filing Modernization Project
HSCRC is requesting hospital participation with the Annual Filing Modernization Project. For more information related to the upcoming surveys and workgroups, please visit the Annual Filing Modernization subgroup page.
Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity Data Training
The HSCRC is requiring that all hospitals submit patient-level Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity (SOGI) data beginning October 1, 2025. To ensure that this data is collected in a culturally competent manner, please register and attend the asynchronous SOGI training session. For more information, please
visit the Workgroups homepage and scroll down to the Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity subgroup section.
The State of Maryland is leading a transformative effort to improve care and reduce the growth in healthcare spending. On January 1, 2014, the State of Maryland and the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) entered into a new initiative to modernize Maryland’s unique all-payer rate-setting system for hospital services. As the State’s hospital rate-setting authority, the HSCRC plays a vital role in the implementation of this innovative approach to health reform.
This initiative replaced Maryland’s 36-year-old Medicare waiver and allowed Maryland to adopt new and innovative policies aimed at reducing per capita hospital expenditures and improving patient health outcomes. The All-Payer Model successfully reduced costs to purchasers of care—businesses, patients, insurers, Medicare, and Medicaid—and began to improve the quality of the care that patients receive both inside and outside of the hospital. Since 2014, the State, in close partnership with providers, payers, and consumers, has made significant progress toward this modernization effort.
Under the new “Total Cost of Care Model,” which began in January 2019 and builds upon the successes of the All-Payer Model, Maryland will progressively transform care delivery across the health care system with the objective of improving health and quality of care. At the same time, the State's growth in Medicare spending must be maintained lower than the national growth rate. The Total Cost of Care Model will give the State flexibility to tailor initiatives to the Maryland health care context, and encourage providers to drive health care innovation. The Total Cost of Care Model encourages continued Care Redesign, and provides new tools and resources for primary care providers to better meet the needs of patients with complex and chronic conditions and help Marylanders achieve better health status overall. Terms of the agreement can be found
here, and additional details on the Model can be found on the
Modernization tab.
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