Maryland Legislative Victory: State Mandates Inflationary Provider Rate Increases

Congratulations to Maryland providers who worked to pass legislation that links inflation for community developmental disability and mental health services to inflation the state budgets for itself.  The mechanism is a “weighted average cost structure” that will equate costs for community providers with costs in the state budget (e.g., personnel, benefits, gasoline, food, etc).  The legislation mandates that the state include in the budget inflationary increases for community providers equivalent to those the state gives to itself.    The bill includes a cap of no more than 4%, and a floor of 0%, so that if the state budgets a negative number for inflation, providers are held harmless. The legislation has a five-year sunset (which is expected to either be removed at that time, or replaced with something better), and a directive to the state health department to develop a plan and timeline for implementation of a real rate-setting process.   

Thank you to Laura Howell, from the Maryland Association of Community Services, for letting ANCOR know of this fantastic news and for providing the bill text and “briefing sheet”.