This annual report, written for the UMBC community, provides an overview of key projects and staff accomplishments for FY 2024.

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This report describes the services The Hilltop Institute provided to the Maryland Department of Health (the Department) under the Master Agreement between Hilltop and the Department. The report covers fiscal year (FY) 2019 (July 1, 2018, through June 30, 2019). Hilltop’s interdisciplinary staff provided a wide range of services, including: Medicaid program development and policy analysis; HealthChoice program support, evaluation, and financial analysis; long-term services and supports program development, policy analysis, and financial analytics; and data management and web-accessible database development.

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This fact sheet explains hospital community benefits—initiatives and activities undertaken by nonprofit hospitals to improve health in the communities they serve—in the context of the federal framework as well as the state and local framework.

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This report describes the services The Hilltop Institute provided to the Maryland Department of Health (the Department) under the Master Agreement between Hilltop and the Department. The report covers fiscal year (FY) 2018 (July 1, 2017, through June 30, 2018). Hilltop’s interdisciplinary staff provided a wide range of services, including: Medicaid program development and policy analysis; HealthChoice program support, evaluation, and financial analysis; long-term services and supports program development, policy analysis, and financial analytics; and data management and web-accessible database development.

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Hilltop staff made several presentations at the 2017 AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting (ARM) in New Orleans. At the State Health Research and Policy Interest Group Meeting on June 24, Policy Analyst MaryAnn Mood, MA, presented this poster, which explains how Hilltop validated, with geocoding, the Maryland Developmental Disabilities Administration’s home and community-based services waiver providers’ self-assessments.

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This issue brief, the thirteenth in a series, addresses Hilltop’s latest update of the Community Benefit State Law Profiles to reflect new community benefit legislation enacted between November 1, 2015, and May 31, 2016. Just three states enacted new community benefit legislation: Florida, New Hampshire, and Vermont. To better under-stand current trends in legislative action, Hilltop also reviewed community benefit bills in eight states that were introduced but not enacted or are still pending. Bills like these are often reintroduced in subsequent sessions and inform legislative activity and policy-making in other states.

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The Hilltop Institute’s Community Benefit State Law Profiles (Profiles) present a comprehensive analysis of each state’s community benefit landscape as defined by its laws, regulations, tax exemptions, and, in some cases, policies and activities of state executive agencies. The Profiles organize these state-level legal frameworks by the major categories of federal community benefit requirements found in §9007 of the Affordable Care Act (ACA), §501(r) of the Internal Revenue Code. As state policymakers and community stakeholders assess their state’s community benefit landscape in the wake of national health reform, the Profiles provide a needed contextual basis for consideration of these policies against those of other states and federal community benefit benchmarks.

The Profiles were originally published in March 2013. Because states typically update laws during their annual legislative sessions, Hilltop methodically reviewed the community benefit laws of all 50 states twice in 2015 and once in 2016 to ensure that all legislative changes were identified. The first update, published January 2015, identifies changes that occurred between March 2013 and December 31, 2014. The second update, published December 2015, identifies changes that occurred between January 1, 2015, and October 31, 2015. This third update, published June 2016, identifies changes that occurred between November 1, 2015, and May 31, 2016.

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This issue brief, the twelfth in a series, addresses Hilltop’s latest update of the Community Benefit State Law Profiles to reflect new community benefit legislation enacted between January 1, 2015, and October 31, 2015. Just two states—Connecticut and North Carolina—enacted new community benefit legislation during this time. This brief discusses these changes, as well as community benefit bills in twelve states that were introduced but not enacted in 2015 in order to better understand current trends in legislative action.

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Hilltop Hospital Community Benefit Program Director Gayle D. Nelson, JD, gave this presentation at a Payers and Providers webinar titled The New Era: Hospital Community Benefits & Patient Financial Assistance on June 26, 2015. The webinar was attended by a national audience of state policymakers, community benefit directors of hospitals and health plans, financial officers, and providers. In her presentation, Nelson gave an overview of Affordable Care Act (ACA) §9007, “Additional Requirements for Charitable Hospitals,” which added I.R.C. §501(r) when it was enacted in 2010; gave a regulatory history from 2010 to the present; and discussed the Final Rules and their stipulations that were promulgated on December 31, 2014

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This is the eleventh issue brief in a series published by the Hospital Community Benefit Program. This brief discusses the fact that payment reform focusing on value and quality is driving change that is redefining the hospital’s role in the continuum of care and the health of the broader population. This brief also identifies opportunities for state policymakers to encourage the evolution of hospital community benefit policy in ways that complement and support the realignment of the hospital business model, proactively address the social determinants of health, and ultimately improve the health of the entire community.

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