Health officials report improvement on lengthy ER stays, but lawmakers want to see more done

by Danielle J. Brown, Maryland Matters
January 21, 2026

Just over half of Maryland’s hospitals were able to reduce their emergency department wait times last year, but state officials acknowledged that more work is needed as the state pushes to improve Maryland’s infamously lengthy emergency room wait times.

The remarks came at a joint meeting of the Senate Finance and the House Health committees Wednesday. They also come almost two years after lawmakers created a commission to reduce average emergency department wait times, which have traditionally been among the longest in the nation,

“I would urge some expediency to this,” Sen. Clarence Lam (D-Anne Arundel and Howard) said during the joint hearing. “This is a problem that’s facing all of us and all of our districts.”

Extended emergency room wait times was just one of the issues brought up in the four-hour joint committee meeting Wednesday, with most of the discussion centered around the complex maneuvering as the state shifts to a new hospital payment model.

Marylanders have for years faced long waits in hospital emergency departments, with some patients facing upwards of 24-hours in emergency room lobbies before seeing a provider for their urgent health needs.

Lawmakers look to take wide-ranging approach to reducing Maryland’s emergency room wait times

Officials with the Maryland Department of Health and the Health Services Cost Review Commission have been studying the issue for years and looking for solutions to help bring wait times down.

One solution is to make sure the emergency department is not the first option patients look to when they need care. Health Secretary Meena Seshamani testified Wednesday that the Moore administration has been taking steps to improve access to primary care and preventative care, so that Marylanders can receive health services before they land in the emergency rooms.

Jonathan Kromm, executive director of the Health Services Cost Review Commission, said that 22 of Maryland’s 41 hospitals improved their emergency department length of stay over the 2025 calendar year. He said one of the main drivers of extended emergency room wait times are patients he referred to as ER “boarders,” or patients who spend an inordinate amount of time waiting for follow-up care and tying up available beds in the process. Kromm said that hospitals have been taking steps to free-up beds more frequently.

“These are patients who are staying in the ED for beyond the point at which they’ve been seen and diagnosed by a provider,” Kromm said. “They are awaiting either admission to an in-patient bed, or they are awaiting a transfer, or they are awaiting some other type of discharge or transition of care.”

Kromm told lawmakers that the Emergency Department Wait Times Reduction Commission, a state task force established in July 2024, will finalize a list of “concrete recommendations” for hospitals by the end of the year on reducing emergency room wait times. But Lam encouraged the workgroup to hurry to get those recommendations out as soon as possible.

“It’s a very real problem,” he said. “There’s no reason we should be at the very bottom, if not, close to bottom, of states when it comes to ED wait times. We really need to move this quickly. It’s been a year and a half and we need some recommendations.”

Meanwhile, Del. Aaron M. Kaufman (D-Montgomery) worries that the federal budget reconciliation bill HR 1, also called the “One Big Beautiful Bill Act,” could undo some of the progress state hospitals have made in reducing their wait ER wait times.

Under HR 1, new work requirements for Medicaid eligibility and other measures may lead to thousands of Marylanders losing their health care coverage. Those without insurance tend to delay health care until their situation is more dire and end up in the emergency room.

“Thank you for your commitment to get people to a bed faster, because I was on a gurney once for 13 hours in the ER while I was waiting for a bed,” Kaufman said. “But I fear that the gains we have made have the potential to fall away as a result of the One Big, Beautiful Bill Act.

“Because instead of getting people’s strep throat and ear infections taken care of at urgent care or some other entity, people will no longer be able to afford their insurance so they’ll come to the emergency room,” Kaufman said.

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