22 M.R.S. §3174-LL: Inpatient services reimbursement based on diagnosis-related groups

Beginning April 1, 2010, the Department of Health and Human Services shall begin to phase in a system to reimburse noncritical access hospitals for inpatient services under the MaineCare program an amount per discharge that is based on diagnosis-related groups modeled on the system used by the federal Medicare program. The new diagnosis-related groups payment system must be budget neutral, based on MaineCare hospital payments for the year prior to the year of implementation. The new payment system must be implemented for each noncritical access hospital at the beginning of the hospital's first fiscal year that commences on or after April 1, 2010. The Department of Health and Human Services shall adopt rules to implement this section. Rules adopted pursuant to this section are routine technical rules as defined by Title 5, chapter 375, subchapter 2‑A.